I personally would not train for the scaling tech certificate, I enjoy assisting my doc.

Hygienest  talks of "Quality of Care" for our patients, are they willing to travel to rural areas?

Dentist in rural areas do not have hygienest to help them. Rural areas are not big draws for young people just out of school.

A suggestion: what the hygiene schools should do is have a grant program for people who want to become hygienest,  have them work 2 years in a rural local clinic cleaning teeth in return for their education tutition. This would help the dentist to do other procedures and the hygienest to get hands on experiance .

I feel the dental assistant II who has maintained their CDA and has the ability, knowledge and intrest  to be trained as a scaling tech is a good idea. It would help the rural areas if this is what our BOD wand to help those in rural areas

Dental Assistant II will need to be: CDA through DAMB, mandating 12 hour CEU and $55.00 fee annually. The BOD will mandate registration with an application fee then  a fee to take each expanded function procedure,  then will have an annual renewal for continued registration.

Dental Assistants want to assist their dentist, doing procedures that will help the patient feel good about themselves. Assistants have confidence in their dentist and the dentist count on the assistant to be their right hand.

Thank you for allowing me to vent...

Diane