Opportunities In The Dental Assisting Field

Education & Development Blog

Dental assistants educate dental patients, provide care, and assist hygienists and dentists in dental procedures. A career as a dental assistant in the US can earn you a median salary of $36,940 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Your career path, however, is not limited to doing chair-side procedures. Here are other fields where you can utilize your dental assisting skills.

Specialty Practices

If you are a graduate from an accredited college and have acquired relevant experience, you can move on from simple tasks such as sterilizing dental equipment to specialty practices including maxillofacial and oral surgery – correcting facial deformities and removing teeth –, and pediatric dentistry. The more specialized your assisting skills are, the better the compensation.

Public Health Dentistry

As a certified dental assistant and educationist, you can go into public health and set up a clinic or school with a focus on educating people on preventive dental measures. You can also design educational programs and work with community-based groups such as colleges.

Supportive Dental Care

Another way to earn from your dental assisting skills is to do home dental care services such as providing supportive care for post-dental surgery patients or helping people feel more comfortable during their dental treatment.

Lecturing

Where applicable, having state accreditation, a course in educational practices and years of occupational experience can qualify you to work as an instructor in a dental assisting college. You will, however, need knowledge and the ability to implement teaching methodologies, and be keen on research.

Career Coaching

In an increasingly competitive world where career development is becoming more challenging, your years of expertise and experience can pay off by becoming a career coach.  Design a program that helps aspiring students find accredited courses, understand job requirements, identify useful contacts, and find trainee dental assistant opportunities.

Selling Dental Insurance

Harness your experience and knowledge of the dental market by sinking your teeth into selling dental insurance. Use any contacts you have acquired as a dental assistant to build business partnerships and the wealth of information you have accrued to convince clients.  

The dental assisting field in the US holds a promising future as industrial data projects an 18 percent growth in a ten year period starting 2014, making it a career to consider. And if a hospital environment makes you uneasy, there are many ways you can utilize your skills to earn a living.

Contact a college, like New Mexico Institute of Dental Assisting, for more help.

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13 July 2017

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