Dental Assistants Recognition Week (DARW) rolls around every March (this year it's March 7-13), and it always reminds me about all of the things that I’m thankful for in my career. I’ve been in dentistry a long time and seen many innovations in our field. Technology designed to make our lives easier and create more efficient workflows changes what seems like nearly every day.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I find it can be a challenge to keep up! But you know what? We do keep up, and it’s because we put our hearts and souls into learning every day, and we assist our doctors in providing world class care to our patients.
This has never been more evident than right now. This Dental Assistants Recognition Week comes during a moment in history that the world has never experienced. Of course, I’m referring to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic.
If you think about it, the pandemic has shined an amazing light on dentistry, and how dental assistants have been making offices safe for a very long time.
Not only do we protect ourselves every day by following personal protective equipment guidelines set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), but we also provide a safe environment for patients by just doing what we do—following sterilization and disinfection protocols set by the CDC. As a community, dental assistants have stepped up by incorporating even more CDC recommendations into our days during the last year.
So, today I want to give a heartfelt thank you to all of you dedicated and hard-working dental assistants out there who kiss your kids, fur babies, and husbands every morning and head off to work. When you get there, you put on all of the extra PPE our jobs now require, greet your patients with a smile, and reassure them for the millionth time that they are indeed safer in your care than they are any other place out there right now.
Congratulations and thank you for sticking with this profession. Trust me, it is a great career you have chosen!
Be safe out there!
Sherrie Busby is a dental assistant training developer and OSHA coordinator for Heartland Dental in Effington, Illinois. She provides information and training on dental software, documentation guidelines, and clinical techniques.
