KENTUCKY — Dental hygienists are still in high demand as many left their jobs during the pandemic and the shortage leading to long wait times at dental offices across the commonwealth and nation.
Bluegrass Community and Technical College student Destiny Wright has a passion for helping others, which is why she enrolled in BCTC’s dental hygiene program.
“I wanted to choose a career where I could give back to the community that has given so much to me,” Wright said.
Wright is one of the 20 plus second-year students currently enrolled in the dental hygiene program where students learn how to clean and maintain teeth.
“The two-year program is definitely fast paced and a lot of information but BCTC has a great community of instructors that really work with you one-on-one,” Wright said.
Wright and her classmates practice on each other’s teeth before caring for actual patients of the BCTC dental clinic. But she says dental hygiene is more than cleaning teeth.
“There’s a correlation that the mouth is only the mouth but in reality, the mouth is connected to the entire body so there are many exams and many courses that we have to take to learn how each system in the body is connected,” Wright said.
Dental hygiene is a career field in high demand. Mainly pandemic, according to Mary Jones, the dental hygiene program coordinator.
“A lot of changes in dental hygiene happened with COVID because it was an airborne issue and with dentistry, there’s a lot of aerosols. Every state put in guidelines for hygienists, dentists and staff in the office to follow,” Jones said.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of hygienists is expected to grow 9% over the next 10 years.
Jones says many older hygienists decided to retire rather than retrain, leading to opportunities for students trying to get into the field.
“The demand for hygienists, all of our graduates were heavily recruited, they had jobs waiting for them when they got out,” Jones said.
Soon, the dental hygiene lab will move into a larger facility at BCTC’s Newtown campus. It will offer more patients access to cost-reduced, high-quality teeth cleaning.
“We’re doing the same thing on our classmates as we do actual patients in clinic, just to make sure all of the skills we need, we have,” Wright said.
BCTC plans to open its new dental hygiene clinic in the summer of next year.
Cleanings $25 for kids and seniors 60 and older. The cost for ages 13-59 is $35. Jones hopes as a result, they’ll be able to accept more applicants.
According to the Kentucky Center for Statistics employment of dental hygienists will grow nearly 11% over the next 10 years with about 2,500 working statewide.