As a dental hygienist, I feel completely betrayed by the Virginia Dental Association. What happened feels like a deliberate backstab to the very professionals who have worked beside dentists, cared for their patients, built their practices and supported this profession for decades.

Where was the collaboration with dental hygienists? Where was the respect for our education, licensure and clinical expertise? Instead of working with us to understand why some practices are having difficulty hiring and retaining hygienists, the answer was apparently to find someone else who could be trained to perform part of our job.

And to the dentists who supported this legislation: you may be in for a rude awakening.

If you think there is a dental hygiene shortage now, consider what happens when hygienists decide they will not work for dentists who supported diminishing their profession. Good hygienists have choices. Many of us will choose to work for dentists who respect our education, our license and the value we bring to patient care.

I also keep hearing that dentists “can’t find hygienists.” Perhaps we should start asking why certain dentists and practices cannot keep them. Is it really a statewide shortage, or are some offices struggling with retention because of compensation, benefits, scheduling, workload, production demands, toxic work environments, work/life balance, poor equipment and supplies, physical demands or how their hygienists are treated?

The dentists who already value and retain good hygienists probably won’t need to use this law. I am far more concerned about the practices that chronically cannot keep hygienists and now have an inexpensive alternative available to them.

And patients will be the ones who suffer. Make sure your malpractice insurance premiums are paid up because supervised neglect will be rampant.

Dental hygiene is not simply scraping visible calculus from teeth. We are educated, examined and licensed health professionals. We assess what we see and feel, recognize changes in periodontal health, understand when something is wrong and know when treatment needs exceed a routine procedure.

You cannot manufacture that professional judgment with a short training course.

Shame on the VDA for choosing this route instead of working with the dental hygiene profession to find meaningful solutions. And shame on any dentist who believes the answer to a hygiene workforce problem is to devalue the hygienists already standing beside them.