Love a Dental Assistant

I had my own episode of Undercover Boss yesterday. I worked on the clinic floor as a dental assistant. A limited task dental assistant mind you, since I don't know how to work on patients. My main tasks were sterilizing instruments and pouring models of teeth out of stone or plaster.

Talk about a disaster. I was covered in plaster. I got impression material in my eye. Stabbed myself with a knife in the finger while cleaning an impression tray. I had to pour several impressions several times because they had air bubbles in them (which is time consuming and because I was doing it, messy!). I splashed dirty, nasty sterilizing fluid on myself. I had used an entire roll of paper towels by 9am. The lab was a mess. I was on my feet all day.

My point is, these women work hard. Really hard. They get talked back to by patients, they are bitten and licked or generally not cooperated with. Don't even get me started on the kids with so much food in their teeth that you could feed a small country. Grossest. Thing. Ever. Really.

So my day as a dental assistant was exhausting. There is so much to know and there is so much to do to keep everything moving along all day in the office. They have to keep the Doctors on track and apprised of what is going on as well as work on patients all day and keep the instruments and lab work moving along. They have to learn to talk each kid in the way they will understand what is going on with their teeth.   It is a ton of work and the assistants in our office do a fantastic job. We hardly ever run behind and our patients move along nicely, through the office for their appointments and through their entire treatment. 

Kudos to the dental assistants! We could not exist without you!