Please vote NO.  I  completely oppose the Dental Assistant proposal to allow them to do any scaling!                                                                                                                                                                             

            As a dental hygiene educator, I was involved in the extensive education in training  dental hygienists.  There's a reason why endless hours are spent learning the theory in the design, purpose and use of many different scalers as well as clinical training.  An improperly trained person using these instruments is dangerous to the patient.  Furthermore, scaling is part of the clinical periodontal treatment process, not just "cleaning teeth".  What an injustice to the patient! 

             Dentist who feel this will alleviate the dental hygiene shortage are wrong since this would not replace the valuable role and  expertise of a hygienist.  Dental hygiene is a licenced profession where all procedures performed are according to credentialing criterias.