In the past 11 years I work with both dental hygiene and dental assistant students as they do clinical rotations in our Medical Center. It is imperative that students are knowledgeable about medicines and medical history before they treat in the oral cavity. The increase in medical treatment of patients will aleter the dental treatment. The dental hygiene students have this knowledge and also the hand dexterity needed to perform dental scaling. It takes a lot of technique to properly handle instruments and the adaption to the mouth.

 All the dental assistants who have done rotations here were trained to polish teeth on a manikin not a human. These students have difficulty adjusting to the mouth with the lips, tongue and bodily movement of the patient. I feel it is not in the best interest of the patient nor the student to allow them such responsibility due to the rise in medically compromised patients and the liability associated with dental treatment.

Anne Pennington, RDH, RBA, MS