What are ten duties of a dental assistant?

Here are the top ten technical duties of a dental assistant:

• Preparing patients for dental work.

• Helping with infection control by sterilizing and disinfecting instruments, setting up instrument trays, preparing materials, and assisting with dental procedures.

• Assisting dentists in managing medical and dental emergencies when necessary.

• Assisting dental hygienists with procedures when necessary.

• Exposing dental x-rays from dental diagnostics and caring for dental x-ray equipment.

• Giving patients information on dental hygiene, oral health care, and plaque control programs.

• Collecting and recording medical and dental histories and patient vital signs.

• Providing postoperative instructions as directed by the dentist.

• Forming preliminary impressions for study casts and occlusal registrations for mounting study casts.

• Fabricating temporary restorations and custom impressions from preliminary impressions.

Dental assistants can perform some polishing or explain proper dental hygiene to patients, but most often, their patient contact occurs when working with a dentist on procedures that could benefit from extra help. Dental assistants differ from dental hygienists in that dental hygienists perform much more unsupervised work on patients.