This is an introduction to dental assisting. Duties related to a general dental practice and to specialty practices will be taught.
Emphasis is placed on concepts of radiation safety and patient management.
Through lecture and laboratory sessions the student will gain practical experience in exposing, processing, and mounting dental radiographs of diagnostic quality. This course will enable dental assisting students to obtain, analyze, and evaluate a patient's diet and make sound recommendations based on nutritional education and institutional and motivational skills. The dental assisting students will also apply preventive educational methods for the control of dental disease, utilizing communication skills to design an individualized plaque control program. They will be familiar with the organization, principles and issues of the public health system in the United states and other health care systems and the role of dentistry within these systems. Students will be exposed to basic concepts of epidemiology, statistical and survey methodology, and program planning, implementation and evaluation.