Dental assisting is an excellent career choice if you are a good communicator, enjoy working with people, are skillful with the use your hands, enjoy diversified duties, and are capable of working independently as well as being part of a team. Some dental assistants hold full-time positions, while others prefer working part time, often in more than one office. Dental assistant's duties are regulated by the state in which they are employed, and vary according to state law. The American Dental Association offers a list of daily activities, career opportunities, information on salaries, and educational requirements.
Daily Activities
A dental assistant contributes to the ambiance of the office by being congenial, courteous, caring, compassionate, and helping patients to feel relaxed and comfortable. Your daily activities will include work in several areas. In the treatment rooms, you are responsible for seating patients, and setting up the instruments needed for their visit. Patient history is taken or updated, and, in many offices, your duties will include taking and recording your patient's blood pressure and pulse. You will assist the dentist with each procedure to be performed, taking x-rays and impressions for study models, if required, mixing materials for fillings or to be used in the preparation of prosthetics such as crowns. You may also be required to record entries on patient's treatment records at the direction of the dentist.
Your duties may include giving oral hygiene instructions --- proper brushing and flossing techniques and the care of crowns, bridges, and dentures. Following surgical procedures, you will explain postoperative instructions to the patient. After dismissing your patient, the treatment room and all instruments used must be cleaned and sterilized. Instruments are usually taken to a sterilization area where the procedures for this activity outlined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) must be followed. On their Website, Lab Safety Supply has posted OSHA, Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the American Dental Association (ADA) regulations covering sterilization and other safety precautions and procedures, for example, needle handling and disposal. Sterilization will generally involve scrubbing the instruments to remove debris, followed by ultrasonic cleaning, then bagging of the instruments before heat sterilization in an autoclave. When sterilization is completed, the instruments, still sealed in sterile bags, are returned to the treatment rooms.
In the laboratory, you will mix materials to make casts from impressions previously taken for study models or as part of the process of constructing prosthetics such as crowns and dentures. When prosthetic impressions are set (dried) and ready to be packaged for delivery to a dental laboratory for processing into the finished product, they are sterilized as per OSHA regulations, sealed and bagged.
In addition to your work in the treatment rooms and laboratory, activities may include inventory control to keep track of supplies and facilitate reordering. Your duties in the business office will require you to be proficient in the use of computers and may include answering telephones, confirming appointments, filing and pulling patient records, scheduling appointments, billing, and working on patient recalls --- placing telephone calls to schedule checkup appointments. You will find dental assisting is a rewarding and enjoyable career with opportunities for employment in private offices, group practices, hospitals, schools, and the armed services.
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