I firmly believe that dental assistants should NOT be "trained" to scale Class I perio patients.  A licensed dental hygienist has undergone at least two years of rigorous training and supervised clinical experience to provide the utmost standard of care for their patients.  Besides providing oral hygiene instruction, the RDH has been educated in pathology and antatomy just ot mention a few areas I feel are extremely necessary in the delivery of the best standard of care.  A DAII hasn't been exposed to oral pathology class or state board testing to identify suspicious lesions.  They haven't taken pharmacology classes to learn oral manifestions from drugs or undepth human anatomy to review a patient medical history.  Plus the RDH must pass a written National exam and well as clinical exam to receive their license to practice.  No less should be required of the DAII.

 If the dentists pushing so hard for this legislation have any conscience they could see how the care and services provided to their patients by a DAII would be substandard.  IF there is such a dire need for dentistry in the rural areas why not train RDH's to do crown and bridge or extractions.  In such a conservative state as Virginia, I would hope we wouldn't be the first state in the US to approve such an absurd piece of legislation.  I surely wouldn't want my oral health care to be provided by a DAII.  So NO to DAII scaling of any teeth, supra or subgingival !!!

Respectfully,

Kathy McChesney, RDH