Austin – Austin Community College’s Health Professions Institute has launched a new dental assisting certificate program to meet the needs of area dentists who are having difficulty filling these key positions.

“As a dentist, you quiver in your boots if you lose your dental assistant,” says Dr. David Jackson, an Austin dentist since 1985. “There aren’t enough training programs in this area to supply an adequate stream of candidates. I’ve placed an ad in the paper for a dental assistant position and gotten no response.”

An ACC’s Health Profession Institute survey shows that 75 percent of dentists think it’s important for their dental assistants to have formal training and 100 percent of dentists polled thought an ACC program was necessary. Eighty percent of dental offices and clinics fill one to three dental assisting positions a year. At any given time, 10 to 20 percent of available dental assisting positions are vacant.

“We knew that the graduates of an ACC program would be well-trained,” says Jackson, project director for the Central Texas Children’s Dental Health Collaborative and a member of the ACC dental assisting program advisory committee. “ACC has a good reputation and is offering a quality program.”

The three-semester continuing education program, which 15 students started this summer, emphasizes hands-on skills development and utilizes clinical observations, and group clinicals to ensure that students are prepared for the job market upon graduation. ACC has partnered with Castle Dental, Longhorn Dental, and the City of Austin to provide laboratory and classroom space and internships for students in their last semester. Students in the program will also be prepared for certification in CPR, nitrous oxide and radiology procedures and be introduced to sealants.

“Our goal is to offer our students a very skills oriented program with lots of practical experience,” says Kirk White, director of ACC’s Health Professions Institute. “We’ll also be providing a limited amount of financial aid to qualified applicants.”

When ACC’s Health Careers Building opens on the Eastview Campus in fall 2003, the dental assisting program will share clinical and classroom space with the new dental hygienist program. Both programs will work together to provide dental care on a sliding scale for indigent people.
“We are thrilled that ACC will be offering a dental hygienist program as well,” Jackson says. “We’re grateful that ACC is quick to respond to the community by offering these programs that will greatly benefit Central Texans.”