What is the role of a Dental Therapist?
In any dental practice you’ll find a range of roles from Dentists and Specialists, to Nurses and Hygienists. In many you’ll also find Dental Therapists, a role that many are unaware of. As a Dental Therapist at Sawtry Dental Surgery, I wanted to shed a little light on my role and scope of practice, and how that fits in alongside Dentists and Dental Hygienists.
Why is the Dental Therapy role so unknown?
Dental Therapist has been around for many years and the scope of practice and training has changed considerably over time. Changes to the scope of practice for Dental Therapists in 2013 included the addition of Direct Access, which allows patients to visit the Dental Therapist or Dental Hygienist without having to see a Dentist first.
The skills and experience of Dental Therapists has also been recognised by the expansion of scope to include basic examinations to include checking for cancer, soft tissue abnormalities, tooth wear, dental decay and gum disease.
What can Dental Therapists do?
Dental Therapists have had advanced training and are qualified to perform almost all standard dental procedures that dentists can, including:
- Clinical and periodontal examinations
- Oral cancer checks
- Fillings
- Dental hygiene and stain removal
- Periodontal treatments
- Placing temporary fillings and temporary re-cementing crowns
- Taking dental x-rays
- Extractions and treatment of baby teeth
Each Dental Therapist can then do further specialist training in areas including:
- Direct Access
- Carrying out tooth whitening to the prescription of a dentist
- Administering inhalation sedation
- Removing sutures after the wound has been checked by a dentist
Referrals
As a Dental Therapist, if I identify any areas of concern or cannot provide treatment within my scope of practice, I will refer you to one of our dentists for further assessment and treatment.
What’s the benefit of the Dental Therapist role at Sawtry Dental Surgery?
The key benefits to our patients is that as a team we have greater capacity to perform standard dental work. The Dental Therapists, who also perform all hygiene therapy treatments, work alongside the team of dentists creating a broad pool of expertise, enabling us to, together, fulfil complex treatment plans for our patients. This also allows our dentists to focus on complex cases where their extensive expertise is necessary and optimised.
Another benefit to our patients is reduced waiting times. The extensive Dental Therapist training and subsequent experience enables us to carry out standard dentistry to an exceptionally high standard and reduces the waiting time for routine dentistry with our dentists.
For those who prefer to have their standard dentistry performed by a dentist, that’s absolutely fine – we have options to suit every patients’ needs and requirements.
My experience and thoughts on Dental Therapy
I love working as a Dental Therapist because the broad scope of practice means I can often treat patients throughout their entire journey to achieving dental fitness, building a more personalised service and referring more specialised treatment to the appropriate clinician quickly.
Having Dental Therapists on the team enables us to treat patients more efficiently, often reducing the number of appointments that our patients need to have pre-treatment.
Patients also have greater choice, they can be treated by myself or directed straight to a dentist for the appropriate appointment.
As a close team we all work together to provide the best possible service for our patients.
With a breadth of knowledge, we’re able to draw on each other’s expertise to offer a wide range of treatments in-house, tailored to our patients’ needs.