#6 Role Call - Who's Who In The Dental Office

There are many team members that make up a dental office. Dr. Mike and Dr. Rusty had quite a few DMs last week asking about the roles certain people in the dental office have (SPOILER: no, we do not call our dental assistants nurses). So, tune in as we talk about who's who in the dental office.

As always, feel free to reach out through our instagram @YourDailyDoseOfDental or through our website http://www.DoseOfDental.com. We would love to hear from you and hope your questions can be featured on our show!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yourdailydoseofdental/

Website: https://doseofdental.com/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dmadentist

Ashley 00:00:02Welcome to DM a dentist, your friendly neighborhood podcast, where Doctor Rusty and Doctor Mike are here to make dental care approachable for everyone, because everyone deserves a healthy smile without the fear.

Dr. Mike 00:00:24Well, well, welcome back.

Dr. Rusty 00:00:26Welcome to another episode of DM a dentist.

Dr. Mike 00:00:28I'm Mike.

Dr. Rusty 00:00:28And I'm rusty, and let's talk teeth. So happy that you're here listening just again. So, today's June 2, officially. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Barely, though.

Dr. Mike 00:00:38Summer.

Dr. Rusty 00:00:39Summer. You know, June always typically feels like summer, but in Portland this year, it's a bit wet. Yeah. There's an atmospheric river coming through, which, actually, until I moved to Portland, I didn't even know that was a thing.

Dr. Mike 00:00:49Yeah, but everyone talks about it, so I'm like, okay, here it is.

Dr. Rusty 00:00:52All it is. It's a bunch of rain in June. But another great thing about June is that it's officially pride month, as well. So happy pride to everyone out there.

Dr. Mike 00:01:02Happy pride. Hope you all celebrate, and, yeah, it's great. So, speaking of pride, did you see the Adele snippet online that's going viral?

Dr. Rusty 00:01:10I don't think I've seen this.

Dr. Mike 00:01:12Someone. Dell was talking about work weeks, and someone yelled like, pride sucks. Now, there's context. People think he might have said, work sucks, but Adele heard pride sucks, and she was basically like, no, you don't come to my show and say, pride sucks. You're wrong. And so it was. It's an. It's a funny little video.

Dr. Rusty 00:01:28This was like a heckler at her concert. Okay. Okay.

Dr. Mike 00:01:30So that was kind of cool. But she was talking about her work week, I think. And I think everyone misheard the guy. I don't know. It's hard. It's hard to hear, but it was funny.

Dr. Rusty 00:01:38Well, who knows? I mean, there is definitely a lot of hate against the community that celebrates pride, for sure. So I wouldn't be surprised that we celebrate it. Yeah, definitely should be celebrated. And, you know, I wouldn't be surprised, unfortunately, if there was a heckler that said something negative. So hopefully it wasn't that. But if it was, shame on you, because Pride's definitely shame. Pride definitely should be celebrated. Something that deserves.

Dr. Mike 00:01:58Things need to be celebrated. We've come a long way, so.

Dr. Rusty 00:02:00Yeah, and just, like, you know, we talked about last week, women's rights and women coming a long way. I think, you know, the. The support for the lgbt community has definitely come a long way. Yep. And still has a long, long way to come, for sure. But June is an important time to think about it and celebrate. You know, I know that there's some things coming up in Portland. Although Portland, I found out, waits until July to do, like, their big pride. They do. Yeah. Which maybe it's because of all this rain out there.

Dr. Mike 00:02:25So apparently because of other festivals that are going on, they're like, oh, we're gonna move it. But it's kind of odds, like, the.

Dr. Rusty 00:02:30Road out of festival and stuff. I get it.

Dr. Mike 00:02:33But we'll see what we can get into. Maybe something fun will be going on. No, no, something will be going on. We'll figure out what we want to do. But. So we had a DM that came in, and I love this question because I hear this a lot, where we have a patient sit down, and then the dental assistant leaves the room, and the patient was like, I really like your nurse.

Dr. Rusty 00:02:53Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Mike 00:02:54So I feel like this question fits the bill. And anonymous wrote, what does the dental nurse do? So that's what we're gonna talk about.

Dr. Rusty 00:03:04Yeah. We're assuming you don't probably mean dental nurse. Maybe you mean, you know, the dental assistant, dental hygienist. There's. There's a bunch of team members, and maybe everyone's not familiar with who everyone is in the office and the roles they have. So we're gonna talk about, you know. Yeah, exactly. The different team members, the different people that you'll see.

Dr. Mike 00:03:21I think it's important to know who's who and what's what. So we'll go through that a little bit. Um, but in my office, we don't have a nurse. Also, Resi doesn't. But I could assume some dentists do have, like, dental anesthesiologist or something. Like. Like a nurse anesthetist or something that. So that could be a bit confusing. But the things that we see the most are people confusing dental assistants with nurses.

Dr. Rusty 00:03:44Right. Right.

Dr. Mike 00:03:44So let's chat a little bit about, you know, roles and things like that. Let's start with a dentist.

Dr. Rusty 00:03:49Yeah.

Dr. Mike 00:03:49What is the dentist? Rusty, what does the dentist do?

Dr. Rusty 00:03:53Well, I think everyone knows, basically, the dentist is the one who is going to be doing any of the drilling, filling, all of that sort of scary stuff. The person, a lot of times they wear a white coat. It's kind of the person who has the dental degree, whether it's a DMD or a dds.

Dr. Mike 00:04:12And DDS is a more significant degree, and it holds up. It's an upper echelon degree.

Dr. Rusty 00:04:18He's lying to you, folks. Don't let him. Dds. And I'm a DMD, so he likes to talk a little smack from here to there.

Dr. Mike 00:04:25So us dds's are just more edified.

Dr. Rusty 00:04:29Definitely not true at all. What does DDs stand for, Mike?

Dr. Mike 00:04:32Doctor of dental surgery.

Dr. Rusty 00:04:34I think in residency we called it the dumb, dumb, stupid degree, but, yeah, doctor of dental surgery. Sure, we'll go.

Dr. Mike 00:04:41What is DMD? Rusty?

Dr. Rusty 00:04:43Doctor of medicine in dentistry.

Dr. Mike 00:04:45Oh, yes. Interesting.

Dr. Rusty 00:04:47So basically, DMD, DDs, each of us is one of them, obviously. And we're both dentists. We're both general dentists. There's actually no difference.

Dr. Mike 00:04:56No, it's the same requirements, DMD versus DDs. We take the same boards, pretty much the same curriculum. But why do we have two different degrees?

Dr. Rusty 00:05:05I mean, the only difference is kind of the school you go to, some of the dental programs are DMD, some of them are dds. And so it really just depends. So he went to VCU, which is a dds, I went to Louisville, which is a DMD program, and it's just different.

Dr. Mike 00:05:19VCU is just better. So we did dds instead.

Dr. Rusty 00:05:22Right, right, exactly. Definitely not right. He thinks again, he's funny. Ha ha.

Dr. Mike 00:05:29Michael, it is the exact same, but people get confused because they're like, well, do versus an MD, which essentially do the same board requirements, things like that. But there's different philosophies with do and MD. Sometimes not with physicians, but not really with dds and DMD. The philosophy is pretty much the same. It just depends on where you went to school. Would you say that?

Dr. Rusty 00:05:50Yeah, I would say that the similarities between dds and DMD programs are much closer than do and MD programs for the physicians. I mean, you're all going to learn a lot of the same stuff the first and second year, whether you're in dental school or med school, to be honest. I mean, you're taking anatomy, physiology, all those things, but basically, DMD, dds, it doesn't matter who you're seeing. The dentist is obviously, you know, everyone knows who the dentist is.

Dr. Mike 00:06:14I have to cut him off because it does matter, because dds was original dental degree dating back to the 18 hundreds.

Dr. Rusty 00:06:22Here he goes again. Here he goes again.

Dr. Mike 00:06:24But Rusty Stans tries to stand on this little platform because Harvard, I think, is who introduced the DMD, which, if.

Dr. Rusty 00:06:30You talk about any prestigious Ivy League school in the US, a lot of people think Harvard would be the most.

Dr. Mike 00:06:36But with age wisdom.

Dr. Rusty 00:06:40DMD is better.

Dr. Mike 00:06:42Anywho, they're the same.

Dr. Rusty 00:06:45Other team members, so we've kind of exhausted the dentist you've listened into. You listen to us. You know that we're dentists. You know who the dentist is. Who else do you see in the office? Like, who, when you walk into a dental office, who would you say is the first people that you'd see?

Dr. Mike 00:07:00I call them our business team. So a lot of people call them the front office. Those are like people at the front desk that check you in, check your insurance, do things like that. They do a lot of the financial things. Yeah, yeah. Business team, super friendly.

Dr. Rusty 00:07:13I mean, you know, our office, they're. They're amazing. They're super intelligent on the treatment plans, the insurance stuff. They're very friendly. They're there to welcome you with a nice, warm, friendly smile. Deal with scheduling. Yeah. Coordination, all that sort of stuff.

Dr. Mike 00:07:26Yeah, we couldn't do what we do. We didn't have them. Definitely also make sure that, you know, things are covered or, like, you have your appointment for the correct time, correct place, like.

Dr. Rusty 00:07:35Yep, yep.

Dr. Mike 00:07:35Yeah. We couldn't do anything with, like, you.

Dr. Rusty 00:07:37Know, coordination with different offices, getting x rays received or sent over when we're getting a patient from an office or sending a patient to an office, they help with all that sort of stuff, and they're there to help answer your questions as a patient, too. So if you have questions about the treatment plan, payment plan, options, financing, how your insurance works, different deductibles, I mean, all of those sort of things, that's what they're there, and they're not super.

Dr. Mike 00:08:01We are not your guy for that. And it's kind of nice because a lot of them were. We often in dentals, separate things from front office and back office. Front office is the people that greet you, things like that. Back office is like chair side. Right. Doing dentistry. And a lot of the front office that we have on our team used to be back office, and sometimes it flips. So that's kind of nice. They know the ins and outs of the office, things like that, which helps.

Dr. Rusty 00:08:24Them be more involved, too. Like. Yeah, like you, one of our front office gals is, was an assistant for a lot of years, and so now she knows a lot of the procedures and what's being done, so she has a lot better understanding of that different, you know, codes we're using for different treatment and stuff.

Dr. Mike 00:08:38And they typically know a lot about dentistry and can answer a lot of your questions, which is great.

Dr. Rusty 00:08:42Absolutely.

Dr. Mike 00:08:42Yeah.

Dr. Rusty 00:08:43Yep. So you talked about chairside, so that's kind of the front office. The back office is going to be the chairside people who is in the.

Dr. Mike 00:08:49Chairside besides the dentist, so not the.

Dr. Rusty 00:08:52Nurse, unless unless, again, there are some dental offices that may utilize a nurse if you're doing sedation. I would say that's most common.

Dr. Mike 00:09:01I've even seen, like, botox, things like that.

Dr. Rusty 00:09:03Yep. Yep. So nurse anesthetists, nurse injectors, phlebotomists, maybe two if you're doing, like, blood draws for. Get your lobotomy, frontal lobotomy, phlebotomy. Yeah.

Dr. Mike 00:09:17No, we have dental hygienist. Dental assistant is typically dentist, dentist, dental hygienist, and dental assistant is. Who's in the back? There's one more sterile tech, which is.

Dr. Rusty 00:09:29Yeah, kind of like a dental assistant has that. That role, too.

Dr. Mike 00:09:32So typically four roles in the back. Right?

Dr. Rusty 00:09:34Would you say the dentist, the hygienist, the assistant, and I guess, like sterile. Yeah.

Dr. Mike 00:09:40Okay.

Dr. Rusty 00:09:40Which is assistants are also.

Dr. Mike 00:09:42So let's talk about the dental nurse. I mean, dental assistant.

Dr. Rusty 00:09:45Dental assistant. Yeah. So there's. There's various levels of assistance, too, on training and different, you know, abilities they perform. Perform a whole wide range of tasks in the back office. Everything from assisting and helping us. Chairside. You know, they're the person. They're sucking your spit, doing the suction, handing us instruments, doing all of the things right there. Chairside. Helping keep, you know, a dry field when replacing fillings are so important in helping keep the patient safe and help keeping it a lot easier for me for us to be more efficient while we're working. Chairside.

Dr. Mike 00:10:14And they also deal with a lot of, like, compliance. So, like, they know what state regulations are. They help maintain cleanliness. They do all of these things. And they also are. They take tests to be able to do dental assisting.

Dr. Rusty 00:10:25Right.

Dr. Mike 00:10:25So, like, they know dental materials. They know a lot of things. They also. Certifications. They go through.

Dr. Rusty 00:10:30Yep. And they have, like, OSHA training. You know, they're trained in BLS, life support, CPR, all those things. So really knowledgeable. Couldn't do it without them, for sure.

Dr. Mike 00:10:39No.

Dr. Rusty 00:10:39And they also, like you were saying, are important for the sterile procedures, too. So, you know, cleaning the rooms, cleaning the instruments, running them through sterilization autoclaves, setting rooms up, taking x rays. I mean, they perform a whole range of duties, for sure.

Dr. Mike 00:10:54Yeah. They keep everything nice and tidy, too. So they do a lot. They wear mini hats.

Dr. Rusty 00:10:59Yeah.

Dr. Mike 00:11:00So, I mean, it's important we have them, too, because did you see in the news there was, you know, we talked about these veneer techs, but there's also people that are doing, like, these vampire facials, and they're taking. They're taking your blood, then they're doing these facials with your blood to do all these whatever health benefits, but they're doing it without the proper sterilization techniques. And people are getting hiv from these offices. We're just getting a regular. So it's important that you have regulatory bodies in place, but it's also important that your staff are trained.

Dr. Rusty 00:11:29Yeah. And they're trained to have kind of universal protocols, universal precautions, where no matter what the medical history of the patient is, you know, we're using the same precautions to treat you as if you may have something that you don't know about or you're not telling us about.

Dr. Mike 00:11:43Right.

Dr. Rusty 00:11:43Yeah.

Dr. Mike 00:11:44Everyone's treated the same.

Dr. Rusty 00:11:45Everyone's treated the same. Regardless of your medical conditions, medical history. We're still cleaning all the instruments, all the rooms, doing our procedures with our PPE, our personal protective equipment, gloves, masks, glasses, things like that. That's all the same. And the assistants are really knowledgeable and all that stuff, for sure.

Dr. Mike 00:12:03Yeah. So in conjunction with an assistant, we also have a dental hygienist.

Dr. Rusty 00:12:07Correct.

Dr. Mike 00:12:08Which people confuse with the dental assistant a lot. So talk a little bit about that.

Dr. Rusty 00:12:12Yeah. So the hygienist is another role in the office. They're the person who's typically going to be cleaning your teeth. And so that's when you, you know, you go for your regular six month thing. That's what most people go to the office for, six month visits. And you're going to be seeing the hygienist typically, you know, at our office, our routine patients that have been there, they're going to see the hygienist first that day. They're going to take them back. The hygienist again goes to school, and they're fully able to take x rays. They also do a lot of the roles. The assistants do things from sterile procedures, x rays, all that sort of stuff, too. But they're also capable of doing, you know, the cleanings, giving injections, doing a bunch of stuff as well.

Dr. Mike 00:12:50They wear a lot of hats. I mean, they, and there's some dental hygienists that even place fillings so they can go into further schooling. And a dental hygienist usually has a bachelor's degree. So they don't just clean teeth like, they're also involved in your oral health in terms of, like, nutrition counseling, like to do a lot of things, which is great. They can interpret x rays. They went, they were actually in radiology with us. They, by law can't diagnose off of an x ray, but they know how to read x rays, so, I mean, yeah, dental hygienists do a lot.

Dr. Rusty 00:13:18Yeah. They also are going to be the ones doing the most thorough examination of your gums. You know, doing that gum measurements and getting that gum health going through different, you know, regular cleanings, deep cleanings where you need to be numb. They're capable of doing all that stuff. And, um, to be honest, there's been a couple times when there's been, you know, a piece of something stubborn stuck on a tooth or calculus or something, and I couldn't quite get. And I'll ask one of the hygienists with a little more experience to, hey, come grab this. And they'll. They'll be able to get it out a lot of times. So they're. They're super knowledgeable. Super.

Dr. Mike 00:13:47Yeah. They're buddies.

Dr. Rusty 00:13:49Yeah.

Dr. Mike 00:13:50Yeah. And I mean, we co diagnosed with hygienist, which is great.

Dr. Rusty 00:13:53Like you said, you can't, they can't legally, in most states or any state, I think, like, truly diagnosed, that has to be the dentist, just per state law, who's actually diagnosing and treatment planning. But the hygienist is in there and knows how to look at x rays, knows how to look at things clinically. They're super informed, and it's super important for them to, you know, start to educate the patient on what they might be seeing and what, you know, potential treatment options might be. And they make my life a lot easier, too, when they've kind of already kind of talked to the patient about these things and started that education process because at least the hygienist at my office, and I think most of them are super passionate about educating.

Dr. Mike 00:14:30Yeah. And they're in your mouth for 60 minutes.

Dr. Rusty 00:14:32Right.

Dr. Mike 00:14:33Sometimes I only get ten. So, I mean, they're in there for a long time.

Dr. Rusty 00:14:36Right?

Dr. Mike 00:14:36Yeah.

Dr. Rusty 00:14:37Right.

Dr. Mike 00:14:37So, I mean, they see a lot of things.

Dr. Rusty 00:14:39They do, yeah. And it's awesome to have all these team members, everyone from the front office, the dental assistants, the dental hygienists, you know, a really good dental office is going to have a really cohesive feel to it where everyone's on the same page and, you know, everyone is, is kind of going through the same thing and has the same standards, whether it's sterilization, you know, friendliness when they're chair side or welcoming you back from the front office to the back office, reintroducing you back to checkout at the end. You know, there's a whole kind of system of things that can be in place to make it a smooth transition for the patients in the office. And, you know, our support team is so important for all of those things.

Dr. Mike 00:15:17Absolutely. Yeah. We couldn't do what we do without any of these people, so.

Dr. Rusty 00:15:21Right.

Dr. Mike 00:15:21Yeah.

Dr. Rusty 00:15:23And I think that's what makes you not only successful as a dentist, but also a successful dental office where your patients can have the best experience, because, you know, they're going to be seeing, you know, the hygienist, the assistant in the front office, speaking and talking with them when they're getting scheduled, when they're showing up at the office, when they're checking in, filling out paperwork, when you're being brought back, they're going to be the ones taking your x rays. They're going to be doing a lot of discussion and signing consent forms and a bunch of stuff with you before you meet either Mike or I. Yeah.

Dr. Mike 00:15:52A lot of your time is spent with the other team members.

Dr. Rusty 00:15:54Right.

Dr. Mike 00:15:54So, yeah, I think that kind of brings a good point. That's kind of how, you know, you know, a lot of people like their dental office because they're hygienist, but, you know, you're in a good office when the team seems cohesive, and I think that's a good thing to kind of pick up on. The more you go, the more you see. And then if the team is cohesive, it seems like a happy work environment, then I'd say you're in a pretty good place because we all go to school. I mean, there's good and bad dentists out there. But, like, the majority of your time spent at the dental office traditionally is not with a dentist. You want to make sure you have a good team in place. So.

Dr. Rusty 00:16:23Well, it's like the running joke, you know, I've heard it like it should be called going to the dental hygienist featuring the dentist. Yeah.

Dr. Mike 00:16:29Correct.

Dr. Rusty 00:16:30If you have a good, healthy mouth, you know, we're only in there for five or ten minutes to talk to you, say, hey, take a look around, look at the x rays over and make sure nothing is going on, see if there's any questions you have to address. And, you know, ideally that's what you want. You want us to just be in there for five or ten minutes? Because if I'm having a more lengthy discussion with you, typically that means that there's going to be more treatment needed, and we're going through options for treatment and answering more in depth questions and which, you know, that we obviously spend the time to do that a lot, too. That's our job. But if it's just a quick visit from us, that's kind of your goal. So you're seeing all these, these other people in the office. Definitely is great.

Dr. Mike 00:17:06Yeah, just the hygienist is great. And I'll come say hello, featuring Mike. But, yeah, I think that people are often like, you know, I don't want to get x rays. I don't want to do an exam this time. I never have cavities. And it's like, you don't have cavities because of the team effort that's put into place. So it's important we talk about the team, but, like you, your home care is great. Your hygienist sees you every six months. We talk about things, we direct things. That's, that's what makes a good oral health, normal routine. So I think it's important, you know, the team makes it up.

Dr. Rusty 00:17:35Yep. A quick, easy exam where things have already been looked over by the hygienist, by the assistant. We've chatted about it. We do a quick, quick exam. You know, a lot of times I say, hey, nothing's going on. Pretty boring. But this is a good place to be. Boring at the dentist, boring exam. So nothing going on. Hey, no new news, nothing changing. I love it. Everything's stable. That's my goal in all my patients, that we're seeing them coming back and being healthy, and the team plays such a vital role in seeing that. And, you know, like, one of my hygienists at my office recently saw a little spot on the roof of the mouth of a patient. It was just kind of a little red, swollen area. The patient hadn't felt it or known anything, just kind of felt it. It was a hard kind of lump on the roof of the mouth. Sent it to a surgeon to have it looked at deeper and came back as a cancer, actually. And so, you know, these, that was a dental hygienist. But a lot of the team members are trained, and we'll see a lot of stuff. A lot of times, like you said, they're in there for an hour or more looking around, doing, you know, their cleaning or whatever, and so they're going to see stuff. And, you know, it's, it's all a team effort. And the more people that you have looking, the more things you're going to see. Fair. Two sets of eyes is always going to be better than one. Three is better than two. And so there may be a lot of people taking x rays or taking impressions, looking in your mouth doing different stuff depending on what you're you're needing. But the more. More people that look around, the better.

Dr. Mike 00:18:57Agreed. So team is everything. And, yeah, that makes up the dental team.

Dr. Rusty 00:19:02So thank you to our teams. Yeah, I know some of our staff listens to the podcast, so thanks. Thanks to the team at both of our offices. We couldn't do without you. So appreciate all of you. Really, really appreciate you all.

Dr. Mike 00:19:14Don't cry, Rusty.

Dr. Rusty 00:19:15I might.

Dr. Mike 00:19:16We couldn't do what we do without you guys, so thank you so much.

Dr. Rusty 00:19:18The other reason I might cry is this podcast is over this episode, so I'm going to cry because we're done.

Dr. Mike 00:19:24Cry off, Cam, please.

Dr. Rusty 00:19:25Okay. Goodbye.

Dr. Mike 00:19:26All right, everybody, see you next week. Thank you. Bye bye.

Ashley 00:19:30Thank you for listening to today's episode of DM a dentist, brought to you by dose of Dental. And thank you for your interest in improving your oral health. If you'd like your questions answered by doctor Rusty and doctor Mike, visit [email protected] or dm us on Instagram at your daily dose of dental.