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A Dental Hygienist; Takes Care Of The Small Stuff In Your Teeth So The Dentist Won’t Have To!
A dentist’s clinic may only have one or two supervising dental doctors during operating hours, but needs to shuffle through as many as a dozen patients per hour to remain functional. To care for all the various patients coming in and out in preparation for the attending dentists, the clinic’s dental hygienist staff will clean and care for the teeth before the attending arrives, so that his or her time is not spent scraping away from plaque or other minor cares. A hygienist can be a very rewarding position anywhere from forty to eighty thousand dollars per year in salary, along with benefits and paid vacations and sick leaves so that many prospective students enter the hygiene programs in order to jump start their career.
If you have ever had to have a dental procedure whether a basic checkup or a complex operation like a root canal the dental hygienist likely was the first person to see you in the operating area. Most of the time, these employees have very simple job descriptions, mostly limited to clearing away buildups of plaque, tartar, or food tidbits that have not been cleaned as thoroughly as need be. The tools are the variety of scrapers and picks used to clean in, around, and even underneath teeth. A hygienist also brushes and flosses teeth as necessary to remove any possible source of infection in the event of surgery.
The more experienced hygienists may have more complex roles in a clinic. While they are not licensed doctors and can neither make diagnosis of gum diseases or prescribe medication to clear up any problems, some hygienists and assistants check for degenerative diseases requiring operations. Others can even check the jawline for improperly formed teeth in some cases, checking lymph nodes for lumps and growths. Specialists can be trained to assist an orthodontic surgeon with a procedure, so that even if they do not actually perform an operation, they will be with the orthodontist to help.