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Navigating career pathways – dental therapists in the workforce: a report of the career path subcommittee
Author(s) -
Yoder Karen,
DePaola Dominick
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of public health dentistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.64
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1752-7325
pISSN - 0022-4006
DOI - 10.1111/j.1752-7325.2011.00264.x
Subject(s) - workforce , career pathways , scope of practice , scope (computer science) , career path , dental technician , medicine , curriculum , work (physics) , medical education , health care , career development , nursing , psychology , business , dentistry , political science , engineering , computer science , pedagogy , mechanical engineering , business administration , law , programming language
Creating career pathways to facilitate current dental and other healthcare providers becoming dental therapists can be an efficient means to expand the dental workforce and reduce barriers to access to oral health services. Career pathways are proposed to facilitate dental providers building on previously learned skills to broaden their scope of practice and become even more versatile and productive providers of oral health services. Creation of a unified and integrated curriculum will enable research to document the effectiveness of this new dental provider who will work as part of dental teams and with supervision by dentists. The goal of augmenting the current dental team and reducing barriers to access to dental services for underserved populations can be enhanced by offering alternative pathways to achieve the competencies required of dental therapists.