Cleveland-based MetroHealth System has created a free dental assistant apprentice program set to launch in the spring, according to a Jan. 25 News 5 Cleveland article.
The program is a year long and gives dental assistants the opportunity to work with dentists on procedures such as extractions, fabricating crowning, X-rays and root canals.
The trainees will be paid the hospital's minimum wage along with benefits. The program will rotate dental assistants between a variety of oral surgery and general dentistry clinics.
"During this pandemic, there have been a lot of dental assistants nationwide who have moved away from working in offices," Gregory Heintschel, DDS, chair of dental medicine at MetroHealth, told News 5 Cleveland. "We're starting this program to train our own dental assistants. We also want to create avenues for MetroHealth employees who want to move up, as well as open it to others who want to work in a clinical setting."