New Program?
Tech college wants to train dental hygienists
By Scott Rochat
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Flint Hills Technical College wants to give its dental program a little more bite.
The college has already done well training dental assistants, the workers who serve as an extra pair of hands for dentists. Now the school wants to take the next step and add a program for dental hygienists.
The request will go to the Kansas Board of Regents early next year. If the regents give it the green light, it could be in place by fall 2008, the fifth such program in Kansas.
“It’s exciting,” said Monica Jones, director of the technical college’s dental assisting program. “If I had the final say, it’d be done tomorrow.”
If approved, the program would relieve some frustrations for dentists and for students. For dentists, it would provide some much-needed reinforcement. A study last year by the Kansas Health Institute found that both dentists and hygienists were in short supply, especially in rural Kansas. And when the college performed a recent “needs assessment” survey, 43 percent of the dentists surveyed said they would like to see a hygienist program at FHTC.
For the college’s students, a hygienist program would eliminate some redundancy. Many of the students in the dental assisting program go on to study dental hygiene as well at another school, only to find themselves repeating a number of basic courses. With the two programs at one school, that could be avoided.
“We’re looking at this as a way to make it a compatible process,” Jones said.
The program would only be able to accept 12 students unless more faculty are found. And since dental hygiene involves deep cleaning, injections and other equipment-heavy work, the startup cost for a program can be substantial. That’s one reason the college didn’t try this a few years ago when it was still part of the Emporia school district, even though there had been a request for such a program from the Kansas Dental Board.
Dental hygienist programs are also offered at Wichita State University, Johnson County Community College, Colby County Community College and Fort Scott Community College. The two nearest schools, WSU and Johnson County, each accept between 25 and 30 students a year.
“There’s such a demand for it,” Jones said.
That was underlined in a meeting the college held last week with area dentists. The gist of their response: go for it.
“If there’s anyone that’s not supportive, they haven’t let me know,” Jones said.
According to the Kansas Dental Board, Kansas has 1,389 active dentists and 1,477 active hygienists.