DH 100 - Oral Health Services I

Credit Hours: 5

This course provides an introduction to the theory and practice of clinical dental hygiene. It consists of three modules and each module must be passed in order to pass DH 100. A clinic/lecture module introduces dental hygiene assessment and instrumentation techniques, orientation to the dental operatory, health history interpretation, intra-oral and extra-oral patient examination, dental charting, mandated infection control and confidentiality procedures. Dental models are used for practice and classmates serve as patients. Students must recruit patients for the second half of the semester. A second module consists of lectures on professionalism which examine the characteristics that define a professional, the origin and development of dental hygiene as a profession, professional organizations with an overview of the ADHA, ethics and ethical behaviors, cultural competence and an introduction to evidence-based decision making. A third module covers oral health education and introduces plaque induced dental diseases such as dental caries, gingivitis and periodontal disease and the methods used to prevent oral diseases. Minimum passing grade is “C-” for written evaluations in each module and “C-” for clinical competency skill evaluations in the clinic module.

Course Outcomes
At the completion of the course the student will be able to:

demonstrate understanding of the historical development of Dental Hygiene as a profession;
demonstrate a basic knowledge of personal and professional ethics by developing a class “Code of Ethics” to include privacy policies and practices (HIPAA);
demonstrate the knowledge of acceptable professional judgment and conduct in relationships with adult patients, peers, and instructors;
demonstrate a basic understanding of cultural competence;
describe current issues in dental hygiene practice and their impact on the profession;
demonstrate an understanding of evidence-based decision making by formulating a clinical question and using evidence-based resources to make a decision;
adopt and have an appreciation for the need of safe work practices in the dental hygiene setting;
identify and utilize dental hygiene assessment instruments in a manner consistent with acceptable technique;
locate the oral structures of the oral cavity and differentiate healthy from diseased structures;
determine an individual patient’s needs by completing the appropriate data collection and assessment procedures;
describe and recognize the categories of periodontal diseases and the significance of their relationship to local and systemic factors;
identify basic individualized oral hygiene needs and provide oral care instruction to a patient as a standard element in patient care;
describe and differentiate hard and soft deposits, understand the significance of their by-products, and their relevance to the current treatment of infectious diseases to the oral cavity;
explain the process of dental caries as an infectious multifactoral disease, its relationship to risk factors, nutrition, host response, and current strategies to reduce its prevalence; and
document patient records according to current risk management practices.

Corequisites: All required first-semester courses in the Dental Hygiene curriculum and a physician completed SUNY Allied Health Report.
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