DA responsibilities: where do you draw the line?
I’m the only DA and the first employee hired at a startup dental clinic owned by a husband-and-wife dentist team. I’ve been here for about 8 months, and because I’m the only person working at the back, I wear a lot of hats: chairside assisting, sterilization, cleaning, organizing supplies, managing orders and deliveries, and even helping with promotional materials, creating documents, etc.
We only open 4 days a week and we’re usually fully booked from 10–6 with 30mins lunch, so there’s very little downtime.
I don’t mind keeping the clinical area clean or taking out the garbage at the back bc I consider that part of my responsibility. What’s frustrating me is the increasing number of general tasks I’m expected to take on.
Last Friday, we received a lot of deliveries, which left a bunch of empty boxes and garbage in the staff room. We have a cleaner who comes in every Saturday after hours to clean the clinic and help taking out the garbage. However, the wife dentist specifically asked me to take care of all the boxes and garbage in the staff room on Saturday, even though the cleaner was already scheduled to handle it later that day.
What frustrates me is that we have two receptionists working every day, and neither of them was asked to take care of the staff-room garbage. The staff room is a shared space, and they often leave it messy. Meanwhile, I’m the only person responsible for the entire back of the clinic and already have a long list of tasks to manage.
I’ve always been willing to go above and beyond, especially since I helped set up the clinic from day one. But I’m starting to wonder if I’ve become the person everyone expects to take care of whatever needs to be done simply because I’m the only DA.
For those who work in dental clinics, especially startup practices: is it normal for a DA to take on this many responsibilities? And is it reasonable for a DA to be expected to handle general staff-room cleaning when there’s already a cleaner scheduled to do it?