Dental hygienists refresh their

Dental hygienists refresh their career options

By Cheryl Bell

If you are a dental hygienist who has taken a few years out to raise a family or explore another career but now want to qualify to return to clinical practice, what are your options? Until recently, if you didn’t meet the practice hours requirements to return to practice, the only College of Dental Hygienists of Nova Scotia (CDHNS)-approved refresher programs were in western Canada.

That changed in April 2022, when the Dalhousie University Faculty of Dentistry delivered its own refresher program. Combining the three-month didactic component of the University of Alberta (U of A) program with its own one- or two-week clinical component, the inaugural run of the course attracted participants from across Canada and led to the recertification of eight participants, most of whom are now back caring for patients.

BACKGROUND

Plans for the refresher course at the Faculty of Dentistry began to take shape in 2018, as the CDHNS prepared to implement a requirement that registrants obtain a minimum of 600 practice hours over three consecutive years to obtain or renew their practising licence. This requirement, explains Stacy Bryan, registrar of the CDHNS, was implemented to ensure that the public receives competent, safe, dental hygiene care. The tracking of hours began in 2017 and the new 600 hours requirement took effect in late 2020.

“We knew when we introduced this requirement,” says Bryan, “that we would need to provide an option to enable people who didn’t have 600 practice hours to return to practice.”

Discussions between the CDHNS, Dr. Blaine Cleghorn, then assistant dean of clinics, Prof. Cara Tax, then director of the School of Dental Hygiene, and Catherine Lyle, manager of continuing education, took place and it was decided that, rather than reinvent the wheel, dental hygiene instructor Alma Wade would work with the U of A’s Continuing Dental Education Department to adapt its didactic program for Nova Scotia and the Dalhousie Faculty of Dentistry would provide the clinical component.

But then COVID-19 put the brakes on, and the program could not be offered in either 2020 or 2021.

COVID-19 also prompted many dental hygienists across Canada to re-examine their careers. Some, says Bryan, moved between provinces for better wages or more relaxed lifestyles and some who had previously left the profession decided that it was a good time to return.

Prof. Andrea Hare, the director of the refresher program, says that the opportunity to reassess their lives created significant opportunities for dental hygienists who decided to return to the profession. “Dental hygienists can now earn higher salaries, get better benefits, and have more jobs to choose from,” she says.

THE STUDENTS

The refresher program attracted six students from the Maritimes and two from western Canada. Aged between 30 and 55, they all had different reasons for letting their licences lapse – and for wanting them back.

Veronique LeBlanc from Shediac, NB, graduated from Oulton College in Moncton in 2015, practised for two years, and then left to become an RCMP officer for five years. But having children changed things for her, and with her husband also in the RCMP, Veronique decided that she wanted a more stable life with regular hours.

Even though she was nervous at first, Veronique found that her hand skills came back to her “like riding a bike” and she loved the positive interaction with patients. She says the course gave her the confidence to work as a dental hygienist again and she had a job offer before even finishing the refresher course.

“It was a huge change, but I love it,” she says.

Tammy Hodge-Orovec (DDS’) practised for three years after graduating and then returned to university to study for a master of divinity degree. After working as an Anglican priest for 16 years, and with changes taking place in the ministry, she decided that a part-time return to dental hygiene was a good next step.

She found that dental hygiene had not changed that much while she was away from it, but the practice had changed tremendously. “Everything is digital now and that was more challenging for me.”

Like Veronique, Tammy enjoyed being hands-on with patients and in the lab. “I even found it satisfying to hear the snap of fake tartar breaking off a plastic tooth,” she says.

Tammy now splits her time between the ministry and dental hygiene. “I see them both as caring ministries,” she says.

PHOTO ANDREA HARE

THE PROGRAM

The didactic portion of the refresher program ran from January to March, delivered by U of A. The students then came to Dalhousie for the clinical program, reviewing pre-clinical activities, radiology, and process of care before practising their oral health skills on each other and then treating patients in the clinic.

Hare and Lyle initially wondered whether two weeks would be enough time to cover the material, but because the students already had the knowledge, “it was a matter of sparking what they already knew from before,” says Hare.

For more information on future refresher programs, please email cde.dentistry@dal.ca