No to dental assistants scaling. By doing that you are taking away the job of the registered dental hygienist, who focuses on health, technique, etiology and treatment. Dental assistants are not trained in critical areas; anyone can be a dental assistant, not everyone can be a RDH. In these economic times, I see dentists doing hygiene, I see cancellations, and I see non degreed personal performing practices, like scaling, that should not be done because it is illegal and unethical; your customer pays for a licensed dental professional to do that procedure.. It is ethically wrong.  Yes it looks easy and it is for a trained RDH or DDS. IF OJT were the path, then any long time assistant or hygienist can drill an Occlusal, should we allow that too? hum maybe?

NO need to go into acceptable college degrees and ethical issues. The fact is dental hygiene is a degreed licensed industry in the health field and assistants are not.

The fact is there are no shortages of dental hygienists. The country is saturated with RDH and the market is in low demand. The hygiene schools keep flooding the country with students who have no prospect for a good paying job. Please take a moment to read the RDH list serves and see the evidence that all over the country and Canada there are little to no jobs. Here in N. Va. We even have a temp agency that imports rdh from other states to work at a reduced rate, bringing down the current market salary, under cuting other temp agencies and resident RDH's.

The Hygiene job posts also support the NO JOB and 0 Demand of RDH here in VA. Jobs are posted on line, however they are listed multiple times, on multiple job lists, and the sad fact is that they are old posts that continue to be posted, BUT ARE FILLED. The temp agencies tell you this as well, as the market is dry for hygienists. The field is flooded and the schools continue to support a saturated field, bringing down salary and no job availability. Current RDH are urged to do other things like teach, sell products, go on the circuit to speak at conventions, etc. (Why are schools allowed to flood the market?????)

IF assistants scale, then it is only fair to allow hygienists to raise their skill levels to include, as is done in Alaska, perform restorative treatment on deciduous teeth. And I propose that we also be allowed to fill permanent teeth with restorative materials after the dds does the prep, for now. Eventually, there wont be a need for the general dds, AS cleaning and filling will be done by private RDH. Is this where we are moving? Do not demean the skills of the Hygienist please.

 

WE all know the economy is bad. Cancellations are abundant. Dentists are doing hygiene. Don’t take our livelihood away by diluting the profession of dental hygiene and allowing unlicensed and non degreed staff to perform skills above their educational level.