What to Expect

You can expect dental hygienist training to be a bit easier if you take a dental assisting program first. And if you do train to become a dental assistant, expect plenty of variety in your classes.

At the Bryman School in Phoenix, Terri Brown's 13-month dental assisting degree program involved other classes besides dental. She also took English, math, career development, law and ethics, computers, communications and management classes.

"In dental," says Brown, "we [studied] chairside, X-ray, surgical, CPR and office procedures; orthodontics, endodontics [diseases of the pulp], periodontics [diseases of the gums and other structures], amalgam and composite fillings; crowns, charting, sterilization of instruments and the operatory."

The program also included a six-week practicum.

After working as a dental assistant, Andrea Blakie decided that dental hygiene was a better path for her. "You get to have more of a say in things as a dental hygienist," she says.

She took a two-year dental hygiene program at a community college. She found the workload really stressful.

"You go to school from 8 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, but as the semester progresses, you're sometimes in school or working in the clinic until 8:30." She estimates that homework took about three hours a night.

How to Prepare

Blakie says her dental assisting background gave her a definite edge in the dental hygiene program.

"Friends who've gone straight into the program from high school find it really hard, since professors in the program often think you should know things which you learn about in dental assisting," she says. In some cases, a dental hygiene program may be shorter for those with previous dental assisting training than for those who enter without it.

Blakie recommends that high school students take biology, chemistry, English and communications classes.

Brown advises those interested in dental assisting to check out their local library or bookstore for books on dentistry. "If at all possible," she adds, "try and get a part-time job with a dentist."