Dental Hygienist Essay

What They Do

If I had to pick an occupation, it would be a dental hygienist. When you’re a dental hygienist, you basically just clean the patient’s teeth and see if they have a gum disease. They maintain the teeth to be nice, clean, and healthy. They remove the plaque, the tartar, take x-rays, check to see if there’s a gum disease, and many more. They also apply things such as sealants to protect the teeth, record their findings of the patient’s teeth, and educate the patient about their hygiene on their teeth. Overall, being a dental hygienist is all about oral hygiene.

How to Become One

The four most important qualities to be a dental hygienist would be being compassionate, having critical thinking and interpersonal skills, and finally being dexterity. Without these skills you won’t succeed in this career but if you do, you have to start off by graduating high school and passing your biology, chemistry, and math. After high school, you would have to go to college for

usually 3 years if you want to have an associate’s degree unless you would want to advance in that and have a bachelor’s degree. The dental hygienist programs are typically found in technical schools, community schools, or universities. In the program you would learn about nutrition, radiology, anatomy, medical ethics, patient management, physiology, and periodontics. After you graduate from the program you will finally have be licensed as a dental hygienist in your state.

Work Environment

When you’re a dental hygienist, you would typically work in a dentist office but in some other cases you could work at schools, outpatient clinics, and offices of physicians. Some places that have dental hygienists near me are Dental Solutions in Deptford, Main Street Dental, Deptford’s Family Dental, and many other places. Dental Hygienists in most cases work part-time and some work full-time so the dentist doesn’t have to do all the work at the dentist office.

Pay

The starting salary of starting to be a dental hygienist is 69,280 which is a really good wage for just starting out.

The median annual wage is $72,910. Some people may earn less and their annual wage would be around 50,000. The highest paying wage is 100,170 which are more than enough, but the average pay is good. The person who’s pursuing the career will have a comfortable lifestyle.

Job Outlook/ Opportunities

The employment of dental hygienist from 2014-2024 is beloved to be a 19% growth rate which is faster than the average careers. Just in general, the whole dentistry career will blow up and become in demand in the near future. The downfall in this is that there would be competition to find a job in this occupation since it’s in demand. The thing that is good about this is that companies will definitely will be hiring in 5 years, and probably even in 10 since its doing good right now and is expecting to sky rocket. Which also means more business could be created.

Why I Chose This

Career

Ever since I’ve been introduced to the whole orthodontist “world,” it made me realize how much I love the dentist. I love how you create a bond with your patient from seeing them frequently and the fact that I could make them happier by cleaning their teeth brings joy to me. At one point I wasn’t confident in my teeth because I had a gap and still have an under bite, but just going to the orthodontist knowing that they’re going to help me, makes me happy, and I will love to give that same affect to a patient. Even though it is two different things, it still deals with teeth and bringing joy. Something new I learned about this career is that it’s in demand, which also means bringing more joy to others. Either way, after researching this career, it made me realize even more of how much I want to do this. At first, I was stuck between being a forensic scientist and being a dental hygienist. At this point I believe I will pursue this career. I’m glad to say I’m glad we were assigned this project because it finally made me realize what career I want to pursue in.