Dental Hygienist Essay

There are many different career paths and a variety of jobs for people to choose. Different people are suited for different jobs. The career I chose was to be a dental hygienist. Dental hygienists work as qualified members of the oral health care team to look at and help fix peoples’ teeth and gums; they also search for a cure or any disease. They help patients to improve and keep good oral hygiene. Dental hygienist must be caring and be able to take good precaution of their patients and educate them on their teeth.

They must have plenty of training and duties in this career. They make a good amount of money hourly and yearly, but have to work hard in order to get that benefit; but in the long run it will all be worth it.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov), “the minimum educational requirement for work as a dental hygienist typically consists of a 2-year certificate program or associate’s degree program in dental hygiene from an institution accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation”.

Certificate programs can be completed in 2-3 years. Students will be educated in courses such as dental hygiene practice and theory, local anesthesia, dental pharmacology, oral and general pathology, and periodontology. The classroom part includes oral biology, community dental health, dental materials, nutrition in dentistry, and legal responsibility in dentistry. They also require high school diploma or GED, minimum age of 18, high school courses in math, chemistry, and English, minimum of a “C” average, and college entrance exam scores.

The salaries of dental hygienist vary. If you want to have a high salary, you should move to big cities because the prices tend to be more, or you can further your education so that you can make more money that way also. The normal hourly average is around 21 dollars an hour and for the yearly average it would be about 45,000 dollars to over $43 an hour, or $93,000 per year.