Dental Assistant Recognition Week

March 3-9 is dental assistant recognition week.

I am super excited to be able to celebrate with our dental assistants all week long.

We are starting the week by sharing appreciation cards. I have involved my admin team in helping me make hand made appreciation cards so we can pass them around for our teammates and patients to share appreciation with them.

Dental Assistants are very important in our office. They have a very important role and they do a lot more than what they have to do to get their job completed. We would be so lost without them. If you know a dental assistant in your family, a friend or even a dental assistant at your dentist office this coming week do not forget to say “thank you” make sure to let them know how much you appreciate them.

We have few things planned for our dental assistants and I will share that later since everything is a surprise.

I am making a toast tomorrow morning in our morning opportunity meeting to get this week started right.

I would like to share with you some two good statistics about dental assistants that you should know about.

1. Dental assistants are responsible for many areas within the dental practice and often wear a lot of hats. With broad roles like these, it may seem impossible to find a dental assistant who can do it all. However, dentists and dental office managers said that the five most important qualities for dental assistants to have are good patient care skills, being a team player, being willing to learn, taking ownership of work and showing initiative. They also said that effective dental assistants anticipate the needs of the dentist without the exchange of words and perform duties properly the first time, avoiding the need to redo work.

2. Dentists and dental office managers agreed that dental assistants can bring tremendous value to the dental practice – but they need training and education to be most effective. Fully utilizing dental assistants is one of the ways practices can maximize performance. According to dentists and dental office managers, 84% said dental assistants should do everything the state allows them to do, and 85% said their practice cross-trains dental assistants to do whatever is needed.

Beyond training, education plays a key role. A majority of dentists, dental hygienists and dental office managers believe that continuing education (CE) helps the practice thrive. Overall, 89% said that CE is critical to maintaining the dental assistants’ skills and 90% said that dental assistants who complete CE are more likely to contribute to the profitability of the practice.

Happy Dental Assistant Recognition Week. I hope you keep doing what you do because I know you do it because you care for people. I hope you keep encouraging others that may like to be a great dental assistant just like you. Dentistry is a great field to be in. May you keep changing people’s lives one smile at a time.

God bless,

Jani