Healthy Live Everyday

A career as a Dental Assistant will offer you insight and first hand experience in the areas of Dentistry. Dental Assistants work very closely with both dentists and hygienists to offer quality care to all patients. The duties you will perform as a Dental Assistant will vary depending on the dental office you work for. It will also depend on if the dentist office is general dentistry or a specialized area of care.

Dental Assistants need to be detail oriented as well as patient and alert. They may have to sit for hours while a procedure is being completed or jump into the situation in an instant if an emergency occurs while the procedure is being conducted.

Typical tasks Dental Assistants need to perform include sterilizing instruments and preparing instrument trays for procedures. They also work closely with patients, taking dental and health histories. Depending on the procedures, vital signs of patients may be monitored by a Dental Assistant. They also help document patient records, take X-Rays, and give patients information on follow up care. In some offices they also make impressions of teeth to assist with making casts for caps, crowns, and dentures.

Dental Assistants often work right along side the dentist and hygienist. Starting with making patients feel comfortable and prepping them for procedures. Assistants hand the dentist and hygienist instruments and materials, allowing them to remain focused on the patient throughout the procedure. It is the job of the Dental Assistant to make sure the work station has all the necessary equipment and tools to complete each procedure to prevent delays and feelings of anxiety in patients.

In a crunch, Dental Assistants may be asked to assist with office duties including answering the phone, reminding patients of appointments, scheduling appointments, answering billing questions, and submitting insurance claims. It really depends on how your employer has the dental office operating.

Dental Assistants generally work with dentists and hygienists in a clean, friendly environment that is well lit. Since the work chair side to the dentist and hygienist, Dental Assistants learn many avenues of proper dental procedures. Many just might be able to do them as well as any dentist or hygienist, however, they are not allowed to because they are not certified.

Knowing this, many Dental Assistants choose to further their education in the medical field. They may decide to pursue being a Dental Hygienist or a Dentist. This will allow them to perform many of the procedures they have seen performed over and over again. Watching this process with make their educational endeavor much easier as they will already have seen so many aspects of the dental field in action.

Another reason Dental Assistants choose to further their career is the difference in pay. Generally, Dental Hygienists earn 80% more than a Dental Assistant. Over time, that amount of money definitely adds up to quite a large difference. Dentists of course make much more money that the Dental Assistant and Dental Hygienist combined.

A career as a Dental Assistant allows you the unique and rewarding opportunity to participate in the dental field on many levels. You will not only have many responsibilities, you will first hand be up close to assist Dental Hygienists and Dentists perform the many different procedures that take place in a dental setting. This ongoing training is the perfect learning tool to enable you to further your education with a solid foundation in the dental field to build on.

Once a tooth has been extracted, bacteria will still be alive in the mouth, even more so with those who have bad oral hygiene.  Infections are very common following extractions.  Depending on how bad the tooth was that the dentist removed, he may prescribe you some antibiotics to take that will greatly reduce your risk of getting an infection.  In some cases though, even antibiotics can’t prevent an infection.

If you go to the dentist before the extraction experienced swelling of the face, swollen gums, pain in your teeth under light pressure, or bleeding around the extraction site, then you may already have an infection.  If you indeed have an infection before you get the tooth treated, the dentist will prescribe you antibiotics to use following treatment.  If you have a really bad abscess, you’ll need to use antibiotics to treat the infection before the dentist will remove the tooth.

In some cases, people develop an infection after the extraction, even though they may not have been infected beforehand.  The reason for this, is bacteria.  Following an extraction, bacteria will be more alive in the mouth than ever before.  With the extraction site being exposed, the bacteria will be able to get into the site.  This can lead to an infection due to the site being exposed and the fact that you are unable to use mouthwash or brush during the first 24 – 48 hours.  Not being able to sterilize your mouth means that you are unable to kills the germs responsible for bacteria.

After extractions, the first sign of infection is renewed bleeding.  This normally occurs around 48 hours after the extraction.  Even though it normally isn’t severe, you should still call your dentist and make an appointment to be seen.  Your dentist will be able to stop the bleeding and give you some antibiotics and other prescriptions that will fix the problem.

Some dentists prefer to give patients antibiotics before they will do any type of extraction.  Although you may not have an abscess, most dentists prefer to get rid of the infection before they start doing their work.  They do this because they know the local anesthesia won’t work all that good with infections, and it may take them a lot of work and a lot of medicine to numb the area that you have the infection in.

In the event that the tooth has to be removed and the dentist simply cannot wait a few days, it is possible to get you numbed.  Although it will take quite a bit of medicine to numb the area, it can be done.  Sometimes, dentists will choose to use an IV sedation or laughing gas, in the event that local numbing doesn’t help.  An IV sedation will normally put you to sleep or knock you out, so that the dentist can remove the tooth that is causing you so much trouble.

Even though infections can cause a lot of pain and need to be dealt with immediately, you may not have to take antibiotics once the dentist has extracted the tooth.  If your mouth is clean and you don’t have a lot of germs, you can normally heal the would by taking care of it.  Rinsing your mouth out with salt water for the first few days will keep the extraction site clean.  As long as you take care of the extraction site and do what your dentist tells you, you shouldn’t have any further problems with the extraction site or the infection.

GUIDELINES OF A QUALIFIED DENTIST
1-6 in how to select dentist
7.        He will regularly recall patients for periodic examination.
8.        His attitude is always geared toward the practice of prevention more than restoration.
9.        He will never allow a patient to walk out of his office with a jagged tooth or a rough surface whether it is preexisting or due to his own treatment.
10.     He will do everything humanly possible to avoid extracting a tooth. He considers an extraction similar to an amputation; he feels every tooth is vital.
11.     Although his concern is primarily  about the health of his patient’s teeth, he will not overlook the cosmetic needs of the ; patient.
12.     His office is always immaculate; he is careful about sterilizing all his instruments.
13.     He will rarely ever remove a child’s tooth, even a baby tooth, that will eventually fall out naturally, because of the importance of maintaining the dental arch. If he is nevertheless obliged to remove the tooth, he will insert a space maintainer in its place.,
14.     He will be concerned with the fluoridation of drinking water, and if fluorine is not available in the drinking supply, he will see to it that his patients receive some form of fluoridation treatment,
15.     He is never opposed to any health plan, such as Blue Shield, which often checks on his work.
16.     He always provides a substitute when he’s away so that his patients can always receive emergency help.
17.     A good dentist has all the latest tools, including a new high speed drill, which operates at 300,000 times a minute (the old type operated at only 30,000 times). This tool is most valuable to him, but he knows that overuse can kill a healthy tooth by heat. If the water spray is not working properly, the tooth may die. In short, he will never subject his patients to harmful over-dentistry.
18.     Lastly, the good dentist knows all about X ray. He has a new model X-ray machine in his office that delivers a fraction of the radiation that the old type did. He knows how many rads each tooth X ray will deliver into the patient. He knows what the radiation exposure limits are. He knows all the figures on lethal doses of radiation. He knows all the dangers inherent in overdosage such as leukemia, genetic destruction, fertility deficit, potential blood disease. He knows about the cumulative effects of X ray. He knows and cares and takes every precaution. He will carefully cover his patients with a lead blanket, especially children and pregnant women.

It seems like a great deal to demand of a dentist, but that is why he went to dental school, that is what he has been trained for, and that should be his dedication. He is a healer, not a promoter.