Dental Assistant

Dental Assistant

The dental assistant's role is often thought to be to support the dental operator by typically passing instruments during clinical procedures. However, in fact, their role extends much further to include: providing patients help with their oral hygiene skills, preparing the patient for treatment, sterilising instruments, assisting during general anaesthetic dental procedures, positioning suction devices, exposing dental radiographs, taking dental impressions, recording patient notes and administration roles such as scheduling appointments, ensuring compliance with OSHA and CDC standards, maintaining sterilization logs, and conducting regular operatory disinfection.

The dental assistant should put on utility gloves when cleaning working surfaces during the changeover between patients. Each person in the dental office needs to have his or her own pair/s of utility gloves.

Dental assistants play a large role in ensuring that the reusable dental instruments used daily in dental practices are sterilized adequately after each use.