Becoming an oral health educator: the real story

As a dental nurse I can testify to having been met with bafflement when telling others what I do for a living, with comments such as, ‘So are you the one that holds that suction thing?’.

In reality, there is now considerable scope for dental nurses to develop further skills and competencies during their career (Table 1), in additional to the more traditional roles associated with dental nursing (General Dental Council, 2013).

Additional skills for dental nurses

One of the most exciting advances in dentistry in recent years has been the expansion of dental team-working and skill mix (Brocklehurst and Macey, 2015). Generally, skill mix is considered the mix of staff and skills required to deliver a service (Gnich et al, 2014).