The Cleaner the Better

The most important thing about the dentist office is keeping the environment clean. It takes about 10 minutes to set up for each patient that comes in. When a patient is in the waiting room they may see their hygienist walking out a patient and think that they are probably next and will be called to go back within 2 minutes but the reality is it will probably more like 10 maybe even 15. The hygienist and dental assistants have to go through a legal process created by OSHA. It is important that these rules are followed they are not only to protect the patients but also to insure the hygienist or dental assistant keep their job.

The hygienist and dental assistant are mature individuals who know that they wouldn’t want to be exposed to the germs of another patient so they clean more than they actually have too. They change everything in the room they can and if they can’t replace it they wipe it down with a Clorox wipe. Keeping their patients healthy is their number one priority. Just remember that when walking into a dentist office it gets cleaned every single day whereas your house gets cleaned every few days or so.

           

            How could cleaning a room the size of a prison cell take 10 minutes? The hygienist and dental assistants are not only in charge of their room but also the instruments used on the previous patient. They have to go into what is called (at the dentist office I interned at) the sterilization room. There they have to wash/sterilize all the instruments. Imagine your kitchen, you’re putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and eventually those dishes are going to be clean so you will have to empty it. This is exactly what happens at the dentist office, but sometimes the person who put the instrument in the sterilizing machine isn’t there to empty it and to make life easier on everyone in the office, other hygienist and dental assistants empty it so they can put their instruments in and so on. The dentist office is a lot like keeping your kitchen clean at home.

            In addition, hygienist and dental assistant cannot just leave a patient to go to the restroom or answer a call or text from their family member. After they have cleaned their rooms and taken care of all the instruments they might need a few minutes to take care of personal issues. The 10 to 15 minutes that a patient is waiting to be called in after they have noticed their hygienist or dental assistant walking out the last patient seem like forever but to the hygienist and dental assistant it seemed as if only 5 minutes has past.