>>Hi. I'm Katie Boylan [phonetic spelling] and I'm a dental hygienist.
A dental hygienist's main job is to clean teeth, and basically check for oral cancer
and oral diseases, help the patient maintain their health at home,
and provide preventative services.
And I think it's just mostly motivating them to want to make their health better,
and making sure that they are aware that oral health is just as important
as the rest of your body's health.
I try to stay calm for them.
I think that I try to make them feel comfortable and know that this is not like going to hurt.
If it does hurt please let me know and we can change things,
change the way that we're proceeding.
I try to talk them through like why they've been scared in the past,
or why it's hurt in the past, and what we can do to make it better for them this time.
So the hygienist works on her own, kind of not under the supervision of the doctor.
So we're doing everything on our own in the cleaning and the x-rays, the preventative stuff.
Assisting is more helping the doctor with his work.
So she's actually, he or she, is in the actual room or operatory with the doctor helping him
with different tools, and kind of assisting him with his work more so than what we do.
Yeah, the dentist is always here to do the exam after I do my work.
So they're always going to check for cavities
and just reinforce anything that I've done with them.
And we always kind of chat before they come into the room and I kind of explain what's going
on with their health, and what has transpired during the cleaning.
And they can kind of reinforce everything that I've said.
And then also clinically find what they need to find.