The dental healthcare industry offers a flurry of niche-based roles to different professionals. Naturally, you will come across people working in various positions in the industry. Apart from this, a dentist’s office needs a team of professionals as backup staff whether it is for complicated surgeries or day-to-day procedures. The nature of the treatment procedures in the field of dentistry compels dentists to ensure that they have a handful of people surrounding them.
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Dental Nurse Vs Dental Assistant
Among the professionals working in the dentist’s office, a dental assistant and a dental nurse are the positions about which you hear often. What do these positions entail? Which career option must you pick for a rewarding career? Dental Nurse Vs Dental Assistant. Read on to understand the role of a nurse and an assistant in the field of dentistry.
Dental nurse: what is their work life like?
A dental nurse helps other people working in the reception of the dentist’s office. Besides, they often need to help the entire dental team comprising dentists, therapists, hygienists, technicians, and assistants dealing with patients of various age groups. Patients coming to the dental clinic may have different purposes. While some of them need to undergo complicated surgeries, others may only need minor treatments. Whatever it is, the dental nurse needs to calm the patients and make them feel at ease. Apart from this, they also welcome the patients into the clinic. Here is a snapshot of the various responsibilities that a dental nurse needs to take over:
- Ensuring cleanliness and hygiene of the dentistry instruments through sterilization.
- Decontamination of the instruments that the dentists use
- Working with the dentist and responding to their orders faster
- Maintaining the surgery tools and keeping them ready in their place on the day of the surgery
- Checking the patient’s records and preparing short notes based on those records to brief the dentist.
Overall, the primary role of the dental nurse is to ensure high standards of cleanliness are maintained in the dental clinic. They must aim to control the chances of infection.
Skills and requirements
What are the eligibility conditions you need to fulfill to work as a dental nurse? Often, dental nurses work as trainees in clinics for which you need not have a special medical qualification. However, if you want to qualify as a certified dental nurse, join the dental nursing courses. Whether you join a full-time or a part-time course offering a degree or a certificate, it must have accreditation from the dental council. While the requirements differ from one school to another, you need at least two GCSEs in Mathematics and English or study a science subject. For a full-time degree course, you will need to have A-levels or three qualifications equivalent to the A-level. Unlike several dental assisting schools in California offering course programs to DAs, there are fewer opportunities for a nurse to avail of such programs.
When it comes to the skills that dental nurses need to have, they must know how to manage patient information, especially confidential ones. Typically, nurse needs to work in teams and need to handle their duties tactfully.
Role of a dental assistant
The career of a dental assistant is fast becoming a rewarding and exciting career option. Naturally, this field of dentistry offers immense growth potential and the area of work is vast and varied. So, no two days for the DAs are similar. If you are aspiring to work in the field of dentistry, your journey needs to begin with enrolling in a formal course. If you are wondering where to search for dental assistant schools California, try to pick an opportunity where you can complete the training fast and get a good placement almost immediately.
A dental assistant needs to have a qualification and manage various tasks in dental clinics, including office duties and handling various tasks in the laboratories. If you talk about the exact responsibility and the educational background they need to have, you must try to inquire about a dental assisting school near me.
Tasks they perform
The primary responsibility of a DA is assisting the dentist, so they need to know a lot about the functions they need to handle. Accordingly, an aspirant need to get a dental assistant certification from a reputed institution. MDS Dental Assisting Academy offers a well-defined and structured course program to handle multiple roles. Here is what you need to know about the tasks of a DA:
- Handling administrative duties
- Interaction with patients and handling the X-rays
- Helping the dentist during different procedures
- Preparing tools and equipment
- Maintaining patient records
The DAs need to have interpersonal skills, practical skills, and skills for managing large groups of patients, which they may learn from any of the top dental assisting schools in California.
Are you finding the decision taxing and still in a dilemma about which career option to pick? The dental assistant’s job is certainly more rewarding with excellent growth options compared to a relatively slump growth for the nurses. Moreover, the DAs may advance and expand their reach in the home countries and elsewhere.
