I am an x-ray tech with many years of hospital exlperience. In the medical field the corporations are replacing RN's with LPN's and medical assistants. These people are trained medical professionals but they are being placed in positions of responsibility for which they are not fully prepared. Many have expressed their discomfort at being responsible at such a level. I expect the dental field is being taken hostage by similar greed. The underperforming underprepared employee suffers from performance anxiety. The patient is asked to pay increasing medical costs for a decreasing quality of care. The doctors and medical corporations are cheating both employees and patients 

 In SC we now have thrust upon us a new level of x-ray technologist who "qualifies" for a one year x-ray certiticate rather than a two year associate degree in Radiologic Technology. It is a limited liscensure which allows the certificate holder a limited opportunity to serve the medical industry at a greatly reduced rate and at a greatly reduced level of expertise. The result is that both pay and job opportunities are limited for the cerrtificate holder. Another result is that the degreed professional radiologic technologist has reduced job opportunities. The patient is unknowingly submitted to reduced/limited quality of care but the medical industry makes more money. Who wins here? Not the patient. Not the radiologic technologist. Not even the x-ray certificat holder who is cheap labor but finds that the future is a dead end without proper education. Only greed is the winner here and so it will be with the Dental Assistant II program.