A Dental Hygienist is a trained professional in the field of Health care, where they specialize in providing preventive care to the patients. The job of Dental Hygienists is to clean the teeth, assess the problems of the patient and diagnose the dental problem, and most importantly, providing the dental education to the patients about the proper oral hygiene, as a measure of preventive dental care.
The jobs of Dental hygienists don’t end at the Dental offices, as there are several opportunities for them through the employment in the various hygiene programs in the different countries in US and different continents. They are also bound to get federal jobs, sales and even public health. In the US, Dental hygienist jobs remain one of the most growing occupations.
Source: Careerbear.com
Dental Hygienist Jobs
The job for them is not limited to just cleaning the teeth and diagnosing any problem, but there’s a lot more that the job entails, including the following:
- Screening of the patient, with the diagnosis of the problem initially
- Taking Dental X-ray, and developing them
- Tooth cleaning, with the intention to remove plaque and calculus
- Education the patients about Dental care and oral hygiene
The regular screening includes the checking of the oral health status, review of the history of the dental and general health, cancer screening and preparation of the dental charts, and checking and noting down the vitals, including the blood pressure and pulse.
The teaching to the patients includes the education about the proper oral hygiene, strategies to maintain a good oral health and teaching them about the proper technique of tooth brushing, flossing and nutritional diet consumption.
Dental Hygienist Salary
Although this is not a profession which directly is for the treatment of people, the Dental Hygienists are one of the highly paid professionals in the US, in the health care sector, mainly because they are the ones who do most of the initial work of the dentist.
According to Forbes, the Dental Hygienist Jobs are the 4th best in US in the year 2012, and it is the job that could fetch people almost double the salary a technician in medical field would fetch. There are nearly around 2 lac jobs in the US, and the average salary according to the statistics in the US, is around $34 per hour, and it depends on the level of the hospital and the offices.
These salaries again vary based on the state and country too. A few factors which would change the base salaries are the Location of the Dental office, Level of education at the Dental hygienist schools and training, the specialization and work experience.
Average Annual Salaries Based on Experience
As said above, the work experience is one of the factors which decides the salary for the Dental hygienists and the average work pay per hour and per year.
Experience of 0-1 years: For someone with no experience to an experience of one year, the pay can vary from as low as $12 to as high as $32 per hour, and with the fixed hours per week, the annual salary can be anywhere between $25,000 to $65,000 per year.
Experience of 1-5 years: For a hygienist with a work experience of more than a year but less than 5 years, would get a salary between $24 and $32 per hour, taking it to $29,000 to $65,000 per year.
Experience of more than 5 years: For an experience of more than 5 years the average salary of the Dental hygienist is as less as $25 to as high as $42 per hour, and thus the annual pay for them is between $30,000 and $85,000.
There are hundreds of Dental Hygiene Schools where the Dental Hygienist Training is provided for someone to be a well qualified professional in that field, and the quality of training and education is what would decide the dental hygienist salary starting from the first day of their job.
One who comes from the top dental hygiene schools would get a better pay from any of the several options like the Dental clinics, hospitals, community sectors etc. We would explain in detail on how you can become dental hygienist at the best level.
Note: The salaries talked about, are not standard ones. So do not rely on this and expect the same if you are a Dental hygienist and applying for a job, because it would depend mainly on the place, your skill and a few other factors, including the place where you got your training.