Oral Health Therapist
A dental therapist is a member of the dental team who provides preventative and restorative dental care, usually for children and adolescents. Their role varies in different continents according to their nature of job and the nature of environment, but the basic role remains the same. They will have to get the professional education from an accredited institution and follow the various dental rules and regulation in their country or specific region for continuing their profession.
Oral health Therapy in Different Countries
The history of Oral health Therapist is quite old, back in the 20th century when Newzealand was the country which was facing needs for such persons, they started a program which became very successful and a lot of schools adopted it since then. The dental services in school then became popular in other countries like United States, United Kingdom, Canada and South Africa.. However in Australia , the dental therapists are no longer required to get a full fledge training for an accredited institute, the oral health professional fulfills that job in Australia and he or she gets the full training on dental hygiene and dental therapy as well.Maintaining the standards of high-quality services are mandatory in each and every country.
Responsibilities and Skills
The oral health professional has a lot of great skills to perform their duties day by day excellently. They are not only skilled in dealing with patients well but also they have skills like educating the children about the potential health hazards. They perform detailed dental examinations in the hospitals and clinics on their patients and help the surgeons to diagnose a disease. They perform the simple tasks like cleaning the patient’s teeth when necessary and advised by the doctor.They help the patients restore their teeth and perform services like local anaesthesia.
The responsibilities of oral healthcare professional is not limited to above. They also have to perform important tasks with the latest tools and equipments like X-ray machines. They use radiographs and take X-ray pictures of teeth and mouth. They suggest the treatment that can prevent the further damage to the teeth like fluoride application,s oral hygiene, instruction and taking impressions of mouth. Whenever a problem related to oral health of patient is too complicated or beyond the comprehension of oral health professional, they refer the patients to the doctors for further examination or advice. They also perform social tasks like educating the school children in many countries and tell the children about the foods which are harmful for their teeth. They have to communicate directly with the other healthcare professionals to keep the things running smoothly and efficiently.
They number of tools and technologies they use are used in the world extensively, drills and polishers along with X-ray machines are their favorite and most popular tools to play with each day. They must also have a good knowledge of computer and its related technologies like printers and scanners, they may have to perform some printing , typing and scanning on computers as well. The average salary of a dental therapist in Australia is very high, approximately $11500 per week if they work full time. So this is a renowned profession to choose worldwide.
I am a qualified and registered homeopathic doctor i.e DHMS RHMP. I have graduated from GCU Lahore and then studied in PU Lahore and AIOU for my LLB and MSc Pak Studies. I have written about 600 articles on health and homeopathic on cliniconline.pk and many other websites. I am expert in radiesthesia or pendulum dowsing for diagnosis of diseases. I have also served as an officer in national bank of Pakistan.