This is NOT 21st century this is poor health care!!!
It is almost incomprehensible to think that what is really happening here is NOT the desire for better patient care-which SHOULD BE THE MAIN GOAL IN DENTISTRY--PERIOD, but the WILLINGNESS to have an extremely CHEAPER, UNDER-qualified, LESS educated, probably mostly dentist taught--fly by the pants--kind of training for an assistant to clean teeth. This law will NOT cause dental fees to decrease so people can afford treatment, this will just be cheaper labor and more money in the pockets of dentist who do not care enough about the people they are treating.
I am appalled! You want to make it law that such a person can handle healthier mouthed people until the assistant gives the patient such poor care, because they don’t know any better, and the patient is now compromised and needs a hygienist??? I think the rule of ANY doctor is “do no harm” and here you are willing to do just that!
I can’t tell you how many times I have had patients in my chair that are SHOCKED by the quality of care I am willing/able/and wanting to give them and I hear back from them, “Well my old dentist was a friend so I always went to him/her and they cleaned my teeth and did all my work, and now you’re telling me I need quads? I just don’t understand.”
Is this the kind of atrocity you are willing to make legal in the state of Virginia—or any state for that matter???
I don’t understand why as a hygienist we have to fight so hard for more duties that we are able to do—because we are accomplished and educated, and here it is almost on a silver platter to an assistant to have the “go ahead” and work on people when they lack the skill to diagnose patients. Are you saying they are going to be allowed to probe? In reality the doctor is too busy with his or her own work to probe for the assistant, and when they probe a 9mm pocket….OOPS they are illegal?
I HAVE gone through dental assisting school and was an assistant for several years before going on to hygiene, and I can tell you--along with the dentist that hired me, I didn’t know 90% of what I SHOULD have known coming out of that school. This is the type of cheaper labor your willing to pump out into the dental world?
