Life at Work

It's 2:56 pm, your next patient is expecting to be seen in 4 minutes, and you are still waiting for the doctor to show up for the exam! Your heart starts to race just a bit as you realize the next patient has not had a history of flexibility. If you have never felt this angst, please thank your...

It takes everyone in a dental office working as a team to provide the best care to patients and establishing a happy workplace. Have you ever had a coworker improve your mood in an instant? Besides gifting a million dollars, here are four ways you can return the favor. Remember Significant Events Birthdays, anniversaries, etc. I can’t tell you how great...

General trends in the dental field are leaning towards the increased presence of DSO organizations. A DSO organization is a Dental Support Organization or the corporation of dental offices. Some of the most established DSOs are Heartland Dental, Aspen Dental, and Dental Works. Although the presence of corporate dental offices has increased, private practice offices are still alive and...

As dental hygienists, we have been taught cultural competence, and respect for diversity on a multitude of levels are important core values to being a competent dental hygienist. Cultural competence means that we are aware of and understand the differences and similarities that exist between different racial and ethnic groups, and we not judgmental about the differences. An awareness of...

Culture is defined by the character and personality of your organization. It's what makes your organization unique and is the sum of its values, traditions, beliefs, interactions, behaviors, and attitudes. We as hygienists affect the culture or atmosphere of the dental office as much as the dentist or office manager. What can we do as a hygienist to create a...

The clock is ticking along rather quickly in the dental operatory when your next patient arrives before you have even scheduled your current patient’s next appointment. The operatory needs proper disinfecting, you’re thirsty, and you need to use the restroom. Once again, your needs will have to wait. There is little, if any, downtime for hygienists in busy practices. If...

There are many needed materials and supplies involved in dental hygiene, and most of them lie within our operatories. You have oral hygiene/education instruction supplies, homecare products, sealant materials, set-ups, and other resources to name just a few. With having busy patient schedules all day, sometimes our drawers, countertops, and cabinets can become a disaster zone. Here are some...

As hygienists, we see all kinds of patients and hear many stories from them. We know their life stories and their families. We are people-oriented which is the thing I love the most about dental hygiene.  However, sometimes our patients say or do things that we aren’t expecting, and we have to come up with a quick, yet professional,...

All dental hygienists can appreciate that sometimes there are those patients who can make clinical life a little more difficult. The following is a list of five patient types that can test our patience and some strategies to better manage the challenges they present. The Self-Proclaimed Expert We all know them, they have proudly consulted social media to brush up on...

The race of the clock, the fifth glare you've given your doctor in the last 10 minutes, the sweat dripping down your back, the panic rising, the need to strip off your lab coat and turn on your fan immediately, the pacing, the frantically trying to find and set up another op for your next patient. TIME MANAGEMENT -...