Dear DrBicuspid Member,
The state of Maine is moving forward with a pilot project designed to assess if expanding the duties of independent practice dental hygienists (IPDHs) will help address the state's severe access-to-care issues.
Despite heavy lobbying from the state dental association and attempts by the dental board to limit what IPDHs could do as part of the project, the governor of Maine has signed into law a bill that allows them to take bitewing, periapical, and panoramic images without a dentist present. Read more in this latest Imaging & CAD/CAM Community feature.
Meanwhile, fresh on the heels of last week's statement from the American Heart Association that there is no proof of a cause-and-effect relationship between periodontitis and heart disease, a study published in the American Journal of Medicine claims that older adults who get thorough dental cleanings may be less likely to have a heart attack or stroke than those who don't.
In other Hygiene Community news, forgetfulness, negligence, working alone, and failure to use personal protective equipment often prompt dental students to underreport exposures to infectious biological material, according to a study presented at the recent American Association for Dental Research (AADR) conference.
And a certain glycoprotein that is overexpressed in cancers of the breast, ovaries, lung, colon, and pancreas is also present in tongue cancer and appears to predict lymph node metastasis, according to another presentation at the AADR meeting.
Finally, in his latest Beyond Practice Management column, Dr. Don Deems addresses the challenges of scheduling, calling it the one thing that can make or break your day, week, month, even your year (do you hear the "Friends" theme song, too?).
