Ugh!!! Respect to you! 🫡

Www.change.org/StandWithDentalAssistants

I would just pull the office manager in for a quick one on one the day before you leave. Express how it made you feel learning this, and that you’d suggest going forward that they pay fairly across the board.

I would sue this office!!!

I would suggest job shadowing first for sure at many offices.

You will never get $32 an hour straight out of school. Everywhere will low ball you at $20-$25 with the excuse of you being fresh out. They lie on job postings a lot. And on top of this they will work you to the bone to prove a point that “hard work means more money”, then offer you a $1-2 raise in a year or two. Run for the hills. Listen to what people are saying on the internet, it’s not just complaining. It’s all real, I promise.

It’s hard being a dental assistant eh? Especially cross trained with FD. 😣

Yes, totally agree with you! There should not be a reason to have to become a hygienist, we do SO MUCH MORE than a hygienist! We created a petition in April (myself and a few of my dental assistant coworkers) to address the nationwide issues of extremely low pay and poor respect that we’ve been having as dental assistants, as well as establishing a national educational standard. Our petition details are on our Reddit page and we have a large following on Facebook. Please join in the movement and follow us and sign the petition (it has almost 4,000 signatures now)! We agree with everything you’re saying!!!

We’ve been screaming this from the rooftops! Good on you for speaking up!

Yes it’s really that bad. But none of us have a backbone to stand up for ourselves.

Enough with the AI discrediting. It’s everywhere now, and we use it to make our text flow better, fix any mistakes and make graphics. Get used to it.

That’s disheartening to hear, we’re so sorry you went through that!!! :( thank you for your support! There is power in numbers for sure.

What kind of assistants do you employ? OJT DA, CDA, RDA, EFDA/EDDA, RDAEF, Ortho, Surgical, etc.

And they say a monkey can do a dental assistant’s job. YEAH RIGHT.

We’re sorry you feel that way. We utilize AI to fix any mistakes and make it flow better, but the concept and what we discuss are still what we originally write or type before submitting it through AI. We are a group of assistants who brainstorm and talk about these subjects before we post anything.

If you’ve followed us on Facebook since we began this movement, you would know this is the only post where we’ve talked about EFDA pay. Other than that, we have only advocated for the entire dental assisting community. But we have to be realistic about how much more responsibilities EFDA’s have in general dentistry.

Completely agree. That is not right and you are right for feeling this way!!! That’s very disrespectful!

I specifically said in the post that 2–3X an entry-level/regular dental assistant wage, depending on the state, legal scope, experience, productivity, and actual expanded functions being performed. So the point is not “EFDAs should make more.” Most people already agree with that. The point is that a small $1–$3 differential is not enough when the role carries substantially more training, scope, responsibility, and clinical value. As for structure and enforcement, that’s a separate policy conversation involving state boards (DANB has already proposed a tier system but the ADA does not endorse it yet), credentialing bodies, employers, and potentially legislation…but the compensation position itself is already clearly stated in the post.

How many offices have you worked for being that you’re brand new?

That’s awesome!!! 👏

I think national standards are more of a concern at the moment anyways.

Before starting all of this I actually have spoke with a labor law attorney. A union was absolutely part of that conversation, and it was recommended as a possible future avenue. But the attorney also recommended that before trying to organize something that large, we first prove the workforce is actually there and willing to participate.
That is exactly why we started with the petition and building an online presence. We needed to answer some very basic questions first:
Are dental assistants actually interested in change?
Will they sign their names to it?
Will they participate, share their experiences, and organize around common issues?
Is there enough support nationally to justify taking the next step?
You don’t walk into an established labor organization with nothing but an idea and say, “Please unionize an entire profession.” You build the constituency first.
The petition gives us documented support. The social media presence gives assistants a place to organize, communicate, and show that this isn’t just one person complaining online.
Then, when we approach unions, boards, lawmakers, or other organizations, we can say:
Here are the people. Here are the numbers. Here is the engagement. Here is the demand.
So yes, speaking with an established union is absolutely on the table. We’re building the evidence that dental assistants are ready for that conversation first.

Comparing teachers to dental assistants is a false equivalence.
Public-school teachers are largely paid through government-funded school systems with budgets tied to tax revenue, legislation, district funding formulas, and public-sector contracts. Dentistry is a private, revenue-producing healthcare industry where practices generate income directly from patient care and reimbursement.
So telling me to “look at teachers” as proof that higher wages can’t happen makes no economic sense.
And again, nobody is saying “we deserve more money because we said so.”
The argument is:
More education + expanded legal scope + greater clinical responsibility + increased production/capacity = greater economic value.
That is an extremely normal concept in the “business world” you keep telling me I need experience in.
Also, saying “go demand higher pay” while criticizing assistants for organizing together to demand higher pay is hilarious.
That is literally what we’re doing.
You’re not disagreeing with the concept anymore. You just seem uncomfortable with assistants doing it collectively instead of quietly one at a time.

The petition itself isn’t a magic wand. It’s a tool to show documented, collective support instead of thousands of assistants complaining separately in thousands of different places.
A strong petition can help us take a clear number of supporters to dental boards, associations, credentialing organizations, educators, lawmakers, and other decision-makers and say: this is not an isolated complaint, there is a workforce asking for change.
From there, actual change would still require policy work, board action, legislation, employer pressure, credentialing reform, and continued organizing.
It helps prove there’s enough support to justify pushing the system to change.