Action | Registration and practice of dental assistants |
Stage | NOIRA |
Comment Period | Ended on 11/12/2008 |
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My concern with this proposed regulation is for the safety of the public.
Learning to scale teeth requires an individual to participate in a minimum of 480 hours of supervised hands-on instruction. To make the health and safety decisions involved with the invasive scaling procedure requires extensive additional study of associated topics in health sciences.
I attended 9 months of school to become a certified dental assistant. My dental assisting education did not include scaling teeth. Later, I attended two full years to learn to scale teeth as a dental hygienist. The two allied dental healthcare roles provide very different and complemetary services for the dental health care needs of the Commonwealth.
I can confidently say that the health outcomes for a patient scaled by a dental assistant will be more advanced oral disease; not less. This is a safety issue for dental patients.