I wish to voice my opinion on allowing dental assistants to scale teeth.  I understand that dental assistants have been able to remove cement with scalers in the past but there is much more involved in a thorough dental hygiene visit.  I believe that dental assistant can not provide appropriate care for patients.

Dental hygienist receive education and training not only on how to scale and polish teeth but also on the etiology of gingival diseases and how oral health can impact overall health.  We are also trained on how to screen for dental decay, oral cancers, gingival diseases and other oral conditions.  We undergo hours of classroom education to learn the structures of the head and neck, nutrition, pharmacology, histology, pathology, radiography, general anatomy, and microbiology just to name a few.  We are also  trained in a clinical setting seeing numerous patients under our teacher’s ever watchful eyes to ensure that we remove hard and soft deposits from the teeth without injuring the gingival tissues.  If a scaler is handled incorrectly serious injury can occur!  We are also taught how health conditions, nutrition, medications, and other factors can impact oral health and how to address these issues.  Another aspect of our routine cleaning visit that I think is very important is patient education.  Even if the patient has a healthy periodontium it is our responsibility to educate patients on how to maintain their health and prevent further dental disease.

I attended a dental assisting program and worked as a dental assistant prior to entering the dental hygiene field and I know that I would not have the knowledge or skills to properly treat a patient, even if that patient was an "easy" cleaning.

I also believe that this law can and will be abused because dentist will be more likely to let assistants handle patients that are far beyond their scope which will lead to more gingival and dental disease.  Not all dentist will abuse this ability but some will and those patients will suffer the consequences.