Her office is in the Health Building - HEA 221. This program prepares its graduates for employment in the dental setting, with emphasis on current concepts of clinical chair side assisting. A dental assistant may serve as a clinical chair side assistant, secretary-bookkeeper, office manager, or laboratory technician. Oregon requires dental assistants who expose dental x-rays to hold a Certificate of Radiological Proficiency. Graduating students are eligible to take the radiological proficiency examination which is administered by the Oregon Board of Dentistry.
Students are also eligible to receive all state required certificates.
In addition, students take a National Board examination each year. Courses include basic health sciences, dental sciences such as oral anatomy and pathology, dental materials, radiographic and chair side assisting techniques, principles of office records management and marketing, laboratory procedures, psychological considerations in patient treatment, basic math computations and cooperative education. Dental Assisting is a concentrated program that requires good reading and study skills. Students are on campus most of the day and spend a minimum of four hours a week winter term and eighteen hours a week during spring term in cooperative education. Students are encouraged to take Health Sciences, Dental Law and Ethics, Interpersonal Communications or Human Relations at Work, and Communication Skills or Writing 121 prior to entry into the program.