To the Board of Dentistry,

My name is Lien Phan and I have been practicing as registered dental hygienist at Northern Virginia area since 2007 (license # 0402204216). I recently review the subject of scaling duties for dental assistant II. I really concern and I disagree of allowing the assistant to perform scaling on patient due to the safety of the oral health.of every patient.

First, most of dental assistant do not have a special training as well as an education on oral anatomy . Therefore they do not have skills or knowledge to work as a hygienist who has been educated with specific training to promote oral health.

Second, since I graduated from May 2007 and I have been working at different practice in dentistry (as a hygienist) and I experienced with dental assistant scaling duties. Some practices allow the assistants to perform prophy with scaling on perio maintenance or recare patients. Most of the cases were not successful (98%). Patients came back for continuing care with inflammation (erythema, bleeding...) or pockets forming because of the remaining of supra and sub gingival calculus .

Because of the safety and the oral health of the patients, I think we are professional and we should not allow the scaling duties. We are responsible to promote oral health which related to the health of every patients.

Thank you

Lien phan