As a practicing dental hygienist for over 40 years, wife of a dentist, office manager for a practice that has 3 dentists and 5 hygienists working each day, and a former member of the Kentucky Board of Dentisty, I believe I can speak with experience to the importance of the protection of the public. I have treated thousands of patients and believe that the profession of dentistry has an ethical duty to provide dental care that meets the standards that we would want for our families.

I firmly believe that the challenges that access to care presents to our profession is NOT AN EXCUSE to lower the requirements for those who provide the care.

I understand firsthand as office manager who pays the accounts payable,  the overhead concerns that dental practices have, but that is still not an excuse to endanger the health of our patients by having them treated by a staff member who is not qualified. We have many dental assistants in our practice who are great, but they are not qualified, in my opinion, to scale teeth.

Having served on the Kentucky Board of Dentistry for 8 years has given me an opportunity to know that there are unethical dentists who will take advantage of the opportunity to allow a dental assistant  to scale, without consideration for the protection of the public. I am not saying that dental assistants, who have passed the DANB examination, cannot be taught to do the physical motions to scale teeth. Many ,I am sure, have great dexterity.  What I am concerned about is that they "won't know what they don't know", which can cause periodontal disease to go untreated.

The very situation that presents the access to care challenge as an issue would likely be the office in which the dentist is so busy and unable to oversee the dental assisant's care of the patient. This is a formula for failure to our profession duty to protect the public.

Please protect the patients in the Commonwealth of Virginia.