Dental manpower: auxiliaries — hygienists, technicians
Public Health Dentistry · Dental (BDS)
Tooth explorer
Interactive 3DPeel through enamel, dentin and pulp — then switch to implants, braces or dentures.
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Study notes
A rural district has one dentist per 100,000. What workforce strategy helps? Deploying hygienists/therapists for prevention and screening with dentist referral - auxiliaries multiply the dentist's reach; training more dentists alone takes a decade. Students learn the skill-mix principle: the right worker for the right task - hygienists prevent, technicians build, dentists diagnose and operate - because the solo-dentist model can't serve a billion.
Related topics
- Dental public health: concepts, history, levels of prevention
- Epidemiology of oral diseases: caries, periodontal disease, oral cancer
- Indices: DMFT/dmft, CPI, Dean's fluorosis index
- National oral health programs and policies
- School dental health programs, pit-and-fissure programs
- Water fluoridation and defluoridation