Dental Assistant

Becoming An Expanded Duty Dental Assistant

The job of the expanded duty dental assistant is to perform chair side assisting, expose and process radiographs, carry out basic business office procedures, manage asepsis, infection and hazard control protocols, perform laboratory procedures, assist in the management of emergencies, provide oral health instruction and function as a valuable part of the dental team.

To become a fully-certified expanded duty dental assistant, one must enter the Expanded Duty Dental Assisting program in College. But there are certain admission requirements. Applicants are usually accepted on a first qualified, first accepted basis. The whole process is divided in two - Preliminary and Final Acceptance.

A candidate is granted "Preliminary Acceptance" to the program, once he or she completes the requirements for the initial application. The first one is to meet the criteria for admission to HGTC. This includes the following: submission of application fee of $25; official high school transcript, including graduation date or copy of GED; and official college transcripts. Then the candidate must cover the minimum placement test scores on one of the following tests: SAT, ACT, or COMPASS (College placement test). The cumulative GPA must be of 2.0 or higher.

After being granted "Preliminary Acceptance" status to the program, the candidate has a two-month period to finish the requirements for "Final Acceptance". If the student doesn't not complete these requirements within the two-month time period, "Final Acceptance" to the program won't be granted. First, the student must make a payment of non-refundable $100 tuition deposit. Then the student must attend an orientation session with the Program Coordinator and obtain a signed statement verifying attendance. The last requirement is to complete at least 5 hours of observation in a private dental office.

The other way of getting certified is by completing an Expanded Duty Training Course, which is an an accelerated 40-hour certificate program with classes limited to six students in order to provide a one-on-one learning environment. This dental course consists of lab work on placement of bases and liners, etching, bonding, composite resin, and amalgam utilizing two- and four-handed dentistry. The Expanded Duty Dental Assistant program gains you the skills necessary to perform restorative procedures under a dentist's supervision. Graduation from such a course will provide you with knowledge and skills on the following: caries and cavity classifications; tooth morphology; cavity preparations; properties of amalgam; ability to carve and finish restorations. An informative website on this topic can be found at http://www.intellitecmedical.edu/.

You must receive special training for Expanded Duty Dental Assistant. The salary in this profession is above the average, but requires one or two years of schooling. Schools in New York and Maryland offer some of the best programs, but picking up a particular school is never easy.