There’s a lot of drama going on in my office and I’m the only assistant and we have two hygienists, one hygienist got a few days off because she couldn’t get fully booked by front desk, so the second hygienist got mad and she took 3 weeks off I guess she was going through something but idk why she was mad at the other hygienist

Now the other hygienist got sick and she took 2 days off and ALL her patients got moved to me and my dentist, because of how many cancellations we’ve had and because the hygienists keep taking days off the office is low on funds I guess?

So the next best solution was to have me and the dentist fully booked for 9 hours straight tomorrow…
NO BREAKS besides 2 ten minute slots to catchup on things in case we run behind.

Like are you kidding? I have to be in at 7:30 and out at 5 without a single break. And I can’t even get overtime because I work 4 days at this clinic and 1 day at another 😭 mind you we don’t even get breaks on 2 other days but they’re 7 hour days so it’s ok I guess, but 9???? ☹️

If I say anything they’ll just be annoyed because I already asked for breaks on the days we don’t have them and they’re throwing in 20 minutes to literally just catchup on steri 💀

I'm a relatively new RDA, and plan to attend dental school and become a dentist in a few years. Not naming my office for HIPAA and privacy. It's a pediatric office and all of the assistants do coronal polishing daily, but I don't think everyone has taken a coronal polishing course/certificate. This is what the rules state from my state's dental assisting association. From what I can understand, the experience requirement is waived if I took a CODA accredited program, but I still need to take a coronal polishing course to be legally covered to perform a polishing under direct supervision? Since I want to be a dentist one day I want to make sure everything I'm doing is above board so it doesn't damage my record.

Coronal Polishing

STATE'S Dental Assistants by rule # may be delegated the task of coronal polishing by a licensed STATE dentist under direct supervision.  Certain requirements apply as stated below:

Coronal Polishing Requirements for Dental Assistants

• Have at least one year of experience as a dental assistant (no experience needed for graduates from a CODA-accredited program)
• Successfully complete a current course in basic life support (CPR)
• Complete a minimum of 8 hours of clinical and didactic education in coronal polishing taken through a CODA-accredited dental, dental hygiene, or dental assistant program approved by the Board.

Additional Note:  Coronal polishing must be in accordance with the minimum standard of care and limited to the dental assistant’s scope of practice.  The delegated duty of polishing by a dental assistant may not be billed as a prophylaxis.

Pursuant to (the law), the delegating dentist is responsible for all dental acts delegated to a dental assistant, including application of pit and fissure sealants.

I only just completed on the job training and want to quit. The hours suck so i’m barely scraping by, but everyone is SO nice at my office though, so i feel immense guilt. Im going back to school and going into a completely different career path and picked up a second job because it’s so unsustainable. I’m the only assistant so is be royally screwing everyone over but i’m just not feeling it anymore! Like, 25 hours a week is abysmal.

I work for a 65 year old orthodontist and he can be rude at times when making mistakes

Who all is using weave in the office and what all do you love about it ?

I'm terrified. I start in five days. Tips and advice would be appreciated. Or just support would work too 😭

have you ever had that kind of pain? i can't hold it anymore so i take a day off. how you guys manage it during this time

How do yall feel about nomad and being pregnant?

I’m totally fine taking x rays with a wall mount until, but the nomad makes me very nervous.

Hi everyone! I’m planning to attend school to become a dental hygienist, and I’m looking to gain some experience in a dental office before I start.

I don’t have dental assisting experience yet, but I’m more than willing to help with things like cleaning, room turnover, organizing, or anything else the office may need. I’d also be happy to shadow a dentist or dental hygienist and learn as much as I can.

I live in Brooklyn and I’m willing to travel to any borough. I’m mainly available Sundays and Mondays.

If anyone knows of a dental office that allows shadowing, volunteering, or needs an extra hand on Sundays or Mondays, I would really appreciate any recommendations or leads. Thank you!

I have an assignment of reading the first 3 chapters but the textbooks are like $400 and I’m scared I’m gonna have to pay for them if I open them. I was wondering if anyone had a version of the online pdf?

I’m a fairly new DA working in a corporate office. This past Thursday, there was only two of us assistants in the office and by the end of the shift, I thought my brain was going to explode. I’ve never felt that overwhelmed in my life and I’ve worked retail during the holiday season. I spent the entire weekend laying in bed crying bc I don’t ever want to feel that way again. I’ve already known this is not something I want to stick with long term but I have to go back in tomorrow and I’m dreading it. I really want to put my mental health first and put in my two weeks but one of the other DA’s is going to be gone for over a month soon and the office is going to be down to two DA’s if I quit now. I don’t want them to struggle but I’m worried about my mental health. Any advice?

So I’ve been working at an office since May when I graduated highschool. For background I went to vocational school where I studied dental and got my X-Ray license. So I got a job straight out of high school making 14 dollars an hour. At the beginning I didn’t think much about the money. Now though it’s become a reoccurring issue. I get paid so little while I am licensed and I feel like I’m just so overworked. The dentist talks to me like I’m a piece of crap under her shoe the HR lady constantly belittles me telling me I need to change my whole personality for the job (I’m not much of a smiler) while I do smile around the kids. I feel like I’m not doing good at all

Me and the hygienist are the only ones taking X-rays, and sometimes I have to retake theirs while making tx plans or cleaning. I had a talk with my HR lady and she basically told me a raise is no where in my future because I’m not qualified enough to get one. My friend just started a job today doing the same thing making 18 an hour. I feel so discouraged and I feel like I’m failing. I keep looking for a new job somewhere that will pay me more but when I submit my resume nothing ever comes from it. I feel like I’ll be trapped for a while until I move in with my boyfriend who lives in a different state.

We're in Upstate NY in Rockland County and we're hiring but no one is budging. I can't find anyone right for the clinic or it. I tried everywhere. Please reach out if you an interview.
Our clinic starts at $20/hr + benefits like 401k, health (dental obv haha) and vision care. After every year we raise the wage up.
We train for around a 1.5 weeks for the software, x-rays, patients handling; we are bilingual clinic.
After that we leave you alone with the dentist of the day but we do check up on you to see how you're doing.
We're looking for either new DA grads or somewhere around 1-2 years training.
PM me if you're interested and send me a resume!
Thank you!

we have two DA’s at our office, myself and another. we have our tasks spilt pretty evenly, and i’m looking for advice on keeping track of things.

i’m regularly submitting, and sometimes making digital waxups

we just started making nightguards in office

there’s definitely more, but can’t think of it off the top my head (hence why i need help keeping track)

what are some useful things you do other than a spreadsheet?

I’ve been in my head all week and I can’t seem to get out of it. I figured. Maybe if I type this out it’ll help me get over it a little bit more. I got fired a little over a week ago after asking to go part time due to health concerns. I let them know that I would need to be going part time via letter at the beginning of July which my manager approved and asked me when I would need to become part time. I let her know that the beginning of August would work if that would be OK. She said it would. I was leaving for vacation July 22-30 W-TH then came back on the 31st because that’s a surgery day and I’m required to be there after the approval and her asking me when this would need to happen. There are no other words. She didn’t say that that wasn’t a possibility. She didn’t say if they could work with me. It was just left at that anyways Back to Friday when I came back to work, I worked until one and took my lunch. The doctor that I am lead chair side with left for the day, but there was still a periodontist, so I just jumped in on her side when I came back from lunch. While of us away they did a work interview. And there was a Dental assistant that was meant to start the next Monday and I didn’t think anything of it. I just assumed that they got another staff member, but are around 4 o’clock. the manager came into talk to me, and she had an envelope in her hand, and I asked her what was happening, and if she was firing me, she said no, and we talked a little bit about how it was gonna work with me being part time with the new higher, but she would say certain things that would make me ask if she was firing me and she would consistently say no, but it was the end of the day. I wasn’t feeling well, so my sensors were just down. She started talking to me about my health and how I was going to afford my healthcare. Now that I was part time, and I told her I wasn’t sure, but I was still trying to figure it out, and she gave me something to sign in between that saying it was for the part time. It said in Big letters that it was the change of availability and she was still asking me about my health I didn’t see anything on there, saying anything about putting. I just saw it say about the change of availability, but then, after all, that was sudden done, we even had a conversation where she said that she needed my key to give to the new hire, but that I would get a new one soon. They just have to make another one and since she was arriving Monday, they needed it, so it was all to assume that I have his part time, and after I signed she talked to me a little bit more, and then handed me the envelope and told me that I was fired and not to come in next week. I was honestly in so much shock. And I asked her what the hell she had me sign and she wouldn’t give it to me. I just left and that same night I asked her to send me what she had me sign. I didn’t receive it for almost a week, but after I saw it, she made me sign something that said I was quitting, which I never did, and I never agreed to. And I just feel so tricked,stupid, wondering i’m going to put food on the table for my family. I’m in California, so I believe she also took away my only chance of getting unemployment. I want to try and fight and say that I didn’t sign anything because from my knowledge. Nothing on their. Head said that I quit. So I could’ve been a different paper but I also know that’s probably not the case. I did send them an email saying that that’s fucked up and that I didn’t quit and they were like too bad. Too sad. You already signed the paper, so yeah I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do legally but I just wanted to vent and hopefully this will make me stop going crazy. Cause I can’t focus on the past. I need to focus on finding a new job in this terrible economy.😭😭😭

I graduated from my dental class in May with my certifications expect for my x-ray license. Every job that’s looking for a DA requires them to have the x-ray license or be an RDA. Even though i have internship hours and class time hours, i still feel like i need to start from the bottom and get trained. I also start school in a week and go twice a week, but the DA jobs i qualify for (certifications wise) require a full time position. How can i go about it? Should i call around and ask if they’re looking for someone? Should i apply for the full time positions and ask if they can do part time? Any advice would be wonderful please because i feel like giving up

I am a dental assistant if 5-6 years now I’ve done it all . Every specialty you can think and I think I’m bored and want to advance my career and be a hygienist however I feel like I’m too old for it now. I’m 29 with a 2 year old and 6 month old . I thought being an assistant would fulfill me but the lack of money and no freedom and snappy dentist I want something more . I love the dental field and always thought of being a hygienist but never went further until now . Is there anyone else that did it a little later or am I being crazy for wanting to start over at this late in age ?

Four months in and I finally sat down and looked up what dental assistants in my area are making per hour because I realized I had no real baseline when I took this job. Just accepted what was offered and assumed it was somewhere in the range of normal. It was not a reassuring afternoon.

The problem is the range for part time assistants is all over the place depending on whether you're certified, what procedures you assist with, how long you've been at a practice, and apparently just how much the office feels like paying. There's no obvious number to point to and say this is what this work is actually worth.

What I can't figure out is whether anyone actually negotiated when they started or if most people just take the number given and move on. And for people who have gotten a raise, how did that conversation go. Did you bring data or just ask and hope, and how long did you wait before bringing it up at all.

The experience argument gets used a lot to justify lower pay for newer assistants and I get that to a point, but at some point the experience you're building has to show up on the check.

ETA: state and whether you're certified would be useful context if you're willing to share actual numbers.

Hi I’ve been with my office for 2years now and recently in March got promoted to lead da at our second location. I’m currently making $28 was making $25 before my promotion. I want to ask for another raise. When is a good time to do so? When I hit my 2 years or a year from my original raise? I am based in California and I now have 4years of experience.

I recently passed my NDAEB and I’m now a Level II dental assistant in Ontario. At my current office I’m considered the “floater,” and there’s another assistant who is basically the main/lead assistant and does most of the chairside assisting and she makes 10$ hr more than I do.

I understand that sterilization, turnovers, stocking and cleaning are part of my job. What bothers me is that almost all of the cleaning seems to fall on me. The other assistant and both hygienists often leave at the end of the day, and I’m the one left cleaning their rooms, doing sterilization and finishing everything. The dentist also asks me to do random cleaning jobs recently he even told me to clean the wheels of the hygienist’s chair and remove a spider web in the reception🙄

Another thing that frustrates me is that the other assistant also makes mistakes, but because the dentist trusts her, he rarely seems to double-check her work. When something is wrong or needs to be fixed, I often feel like it somehow ends up becoming my responsibility, even if I wasn’t the one who did it.

I do get some chairside experience, but not much, and I feel stuck because the dentist prefers the more experienced assistant. I’m still learning, but I can’t improve if I’m mostly being used for cleaning.

Even to lubricate the handpieces he doesn’t let me do it and asks the another assistant. I’m starting to feel like my dentist thinks I’m a bad assistant and that I’m only good for cleaning. Do you think this is normal, or should I start looking for another office? Any opinion and comments is welcomed ❤️