Dental Hygienist Administer oral hygiene care to patients. Assess patient oral hygiene problems or needs and maintain health records. Advise patients on oral health maintenance and disease prevention. May provide advanced care such as providing fluoride treatment or administering topical anesthesia.
Dental Hygienist is Also Know as
In different settings, Dental Hygienist is titled as
- Dental Hygienist
- Hygienist
- Licensed Dental Hygienist
- Pediatric Dental Hygienist
- Registered Dental Hygienist (RDH)
Education and Training of Dental Hygienist
Dental Hygienist is categorized in Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Dental Hygienist
Previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is required for these occupations. For example, an electrician must have completed three or four years of apprenticeship or several years of vocational training, and often must have passed a licensing exam, in order to perform the job.
Education Required for Dental Hygienist
Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.
Degrees Related to Dental Hygienist
- Bachelor in Dental Hygiene/Hygienist
- Associate Degree Courses in Dental Hygiene/Hygienist
- Masters Degree Courses in Dental Hygiene/Hygienist
Training Required for Dental Hygienist
Employees in these occupations usually need one or two years of training involving both on-the-job experience and informal training with experienced workers. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Dental Hygienist in different industries are
- Dental Assistants
- Surgical Assistants
- Medical Assistants
- Ophthalmic Medical Technicians
- Surgical Technologists
- Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses
- Veterinary Technologists and Technicians
- Acute Care Nurses
- Registered Nurses
- Respiratory Therapists
- Dentists, General
- Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
- Prosthodontists
- Orthodontists
- Nurse Anesthetists
- Nurse Practitioners
- Anesthesiologists
- Dermatologists
- Anesthesiologist Assistants
- Emergency Medicine Physicians
What Do Dental Hygienist do?
- Clean calcareous deposits, accretions, and stains from teeth and beneath margins of gums, using dental instruments.
- Feel and visually examine gums for sores and signs of disease.
- Chart conditions of decay and disease for diagnosis and treatment by dentist.
- Feel lymph nodes under patient's chin to detect swelling or tenderness that could indicate presence of oral cancer.
- Apply fluorides or other cavity preventing agents to arrest dental decay.
- Examine gums, using probes, to locate periodontal recessed gums and signs of gum disease.
- Expose and develop x-ray film.
- Remove excess cement from coronal surfaces of teeth.
- Make impressions for study casts.
- Administer local anesthetic agents.
- Conduct dental health clinics for community groups to augment services of dentist.
- Remove sutures and dressings.
- Place and remove rubber dams, matrices, and temporary restorations.
- Record and review patient medical histories.
- Provide clinical services or health education to improve and maintain the oral health of patients or the general public.
- Maintain dental equipment and sharpen and sterilize dental instruments.
- Maintain patient recall system.
- Attend continuing education courses to maintain or update skills.
Qualities of Good Dental Hygienist
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
Tools Used by Dental Hygienist
- Air abrasion equipment
- Air-driven dental polishers
- Air/water syringes
- Amalgam carriers
- Angle formers
- Aspirating syringes
- Autoclaves
- Autoscalars
- Bite wings
- Calculus explorers
- Caries detection aids
- Caries explorers
- Cavitron equipment
- Computer scanners
- Cotton pliers
- Dental chairs
- Dental curettes
- Dental lasers
- Dental needles
- Dental polishers
- Dental x ray development equipment
- Dental x ray machines
- Digital cameras
- Digital dental x ray units
- Electronic blood pressure units
- Electronic calculus detectors
- Film badges
- Hand scalers
- Hollow handle scalars
- Impression trays
- Instrument sharpening devices
- Intraoral dental cameras
- Lead aprons
- Manual blood pressure cuffs
- Matrices/matrix retainers
- Mechanical mixers
- Mechanical stethoscopes
- Mercury blood pressure units
- Microscope slides
- Motor-driven dental polishers
- Nabers furcation probes
- Neodymium-doped Yttrium Aluminum Garnet Nd:YAG dental lasers
- Nitrous oxide administration equipment
- Notebook computers
- Oxygen administration equipment
- Panoramic dental x ray units
- Periapical films
- Periodontal probes
- Personal computers
- Portable dental x ray units
- Pulp testers
- Retraction cords
- Rotating caps
- Rubber dams
- Saliva ejectors
- Solid handle scalars
- Suctioning equipment
- Ultrasonic scalers
- Ultrasonic sterilization units
Technology Skills required for Dental Hygienist
- Dental billing software
- Dental charting software
- Dental clinical records software
- Dental digital radiology software
- Dental imaging software
- Dental intra-oral imaging software
- Dental office management software
- Email software
- Henry Schein Dentrix
- Inventory management software
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Word
- Open Dental
- Patterson Dental Supply Patterson EagleSoft
- Scheduling software
- Voice-activated perio charting software
- Web browser software
- Word processing software