Career inquiry: dental technician & assistant

ksj1526

Hi I am considering to be clinical professional as my career, so I need some help like your experience and suggestion etc.

1. (1)dental technician : Who will be the major employer, hospital/private clinic/self/company (please indicate names)? Salary for year 1st-4th? What is the major difficulty in this job? what operation/reagents used frequently may threaten dental technicians' health and safety?

(2) BDentTech programme: Is BDentTech programme in TCD the only BDentTech programme in Republic of Ireland? Does the programme fully guarantee the registration in **council/broad and qualification to practice immediately? Should I need to do a internship? Any licence Exam? How long time a BDentTech new graduate could find his job averagely? Is there any further programme, e.g. D.Ch.Dent, I could study to enhance my dental technician qualification in Eire?

2. What is dental assistant job in this country? What programme I should study and qualification I should have for this career? What is the major difficulty in this job? Who will be the major employer, hospital/private clinic/self/company (please indicate names)? Salary for year 1st-4th? Is there any further programme I could study enhance my dental assistant qualification in Eire? what operation/reagents used frequently may threaten dental assistants' health and safety?


3. Will most Irishes use the dental service in this coutry or you will go to UK & other EU country for teeth?

Thanks!

Magenta

Hi ksj1526,

There's a website called Dentist.ie and they have a Careers section with some info on it- here is the link http://www.dentist.ie/resources/careers/

There are also many Dental courses in the UK. Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Dundee, Glasgow, Cardiff and others. As far as I know if you are an EU undergraduate and doing your degree in Scotland, you won't have to pay tuition fees.

Hope this helps!

ksj1526

Thank you for your return. I am a non-EU so I have to pay creazy non_EU fee by myself without any funding assistant and consider naturalisation issue after graduate.

Also I wonder to know: (1) how many hours a dental technician have to work per week? what about dental assistant? (2) Will BDentTech degree confered by TCD (Irish licience if available) be recognized in other EU states and Anglophone countries? (3) who will offer Appliance, facilities and practise venue for dental technician?

ksj1526

Could Dental Hygienist/Dip.Dent.Hygiene cover the qualification of Dental Nurse/Dip.Dent.Cur?

georgieporgy

do you already have some experience or qualification in anything related to dentistry? how old are you? male or female? please give us some more info.
A lot depends on who you are and your present circumstances.

ksj1526

georgieporgy wrote: »

do you already have some experience or qualification in anything related to dentistry? how old are you? male or female? please give us some more info.
A lot depends on who you are and your present circumstances.

I am 23 male, non_EEA, already have a BEng in Polymer Material and Engineering from non_EEA state, nealy finish my MSc Biotechnology in UCC with dissertation in Pharmacy.

Big_G

No offense to any dental nurses or hygienists, but you are already overqualified for those jobs. You should consider dental technology or dental science. Anything else and you will be bored, and probably wasted on.

Dental science and dental technology rely heavily on biomaterials science. Even though consideration is not given to this during undergraduate training, I happen to think that it is possibly one of the most important areas to know and understand, especially for the general dentist. Possibly even more so for a technician.

Magenta

I'd love to be a hygienist. Filling out my CAO and UCAS for it soon. I have a B.Sc in Biology but it doesn't seem to qualify me for much besides working in the bank or being a sales rep, so I'm going back to college.
I did look up dental tech online but I think hygiene interests me more.

amdublin

georgieporgy wrote: »

male or female?

Why does this matter in relation to a career?

ksj1526

Those questions were mentioned in my post in Healthy Science section but more dental professionals are here so I post them again:

there is no licence exam, but will BDentTech confered by TCD allow you to register in XXsociety Ireland /HSE or somewhere? Could you practice directly after you get the degree? Is BDentTech (ORDINARY degree) from TCD recognized in EEA, USA, CA, AU and NZ as well as Irish BPharmacy degree? BDentTech in NZ is an honour programme with consequent Master and Doctor programmes. Does TCD or UCC offer any consequent Master and Doctor programmes for BDentTech graduates? Will the dental technicians' job be a full time one and offer you a salary over 30k per year (it is the criteria to get work visa for clinical careers)? Newspaper this year said many Irishes had already go to other EEA states for dentistry becuase Irish dentistry was too expensive. Globally Dental science and dental technology rely heavily on biomaterials science, and biomaterial is my undergraduate dissertation so I already met Dental school and hospital UCC last Jan but they were quite conservative for dental technology creation. I also contacted with Dublin Dental school and hospital TCD but they NEVER returned to me. And also there is few R&D here right? Then how could I get a job for "dental technology improvement" in industry, or somewhere except clinical lab? And is there any company produces dental facilities like brace, fillings, dental materials etc. in this country?

georgieporgy

A dental technician spends his day constructing dental prostheses and not inventing or improving dental materials. I think you need to search under "Dental Materials Manufacturers" to find employment suited to your talents. I don't think there are any in Ireland but there are many in Europe and the US. Why waste years training to be a technician if your real desire is improve materials.

On the other hand you can pick up a bit of knowledge about dental lab work by getting a job at a large dental lab where they may be willing to train you as an apprentice.

georgieporgy

amdublin wrote: »

Why does this matter in relation to a career?

a man can make an excellent chairside assistant. Unfortunately the dental patient expects a female so employment opportunities for a male assistant are not plentiful. But there are some around. It's not fair though. I think someone should start a campaign to demand equal access to such careers for men. They can be just as good or even better than women.

male or female makes no difference if choosing a career as a dental technician.

georgieporgy

ksj1526 wrote: »

I am 23 male, non_EEA, already have a BEng in Polymer Material and Engineering from non_EEA state, nealy finish my MSc Biotechnology in UCC with dissertation in Pharmacy.

As you are already in UCC, nip round to the Dental School at Wilton Hospital and speak to the dean or some other guy at that level. They should be able to offer advice. They also have a dental lab there so you should be able to look around and make a few contacts.