The panel discussed dental staff shortages, particularly shortages of hygienists, and the trend of increased demand for more flexibility among prospective employees. They also discussed the potential of cross-medical recruitment, where medical professionals from other fields are trained to work in dental practices.
Editor’s note: Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.
3 takeaways + quotes:
1: Building relationships with high schools and vocational programs can help attract and develop future dental assistants.
Priyanki Amroliwala: Build a relationship with local high schools and you can convince young people to go into dental assisting and eventually become dentists as well.
2: Offering on-the-job training programs can help attract future dental assistants.
PA: We’re doing an on-the-job training program and bringing in people from different industries that otherwise wouldn’t have the means to invest in the training necessary to move into the dental industry.
3: Exploring cross-medical pollination, such as recruiting nurses or EMTs, can provide a new pool of talent for dental practices.
Dau Tucker: We recruit out of a surgical tech program for a dental assistant bootcamp. It’s a 12-week program to get some as close to becoming a dental assistant as possible. We’ve done some recruiting of nurse aides that crossover into dental assisting as well.