Dentist here (Oral Medicine) can we talk about how much dental hygienists actually carry?
Stumbled into this community and genuinely glad I did.
Quick intro: I’m a dentist who did a specialty in Oral Medicine at Penn. I’m relocating to the Blacksburg/Christiansburg, Virginia area and I’ve been thinking a lot about what good collaborative dental care actually looks like in practice.
And it starts here. With you all.
Here’s something I don’t think gets said enough: dental hygienists are often the most clinically complete person in the building. You’re taking the medical history. You’re building the relationship. You’re spending 45 minutes to an hour with a patient who’s actually relaxed enough to tell you things they won’t tell anyone else. You catch the blood pressure that’s been quietly climbing. You notice the patient who’s lost weight. You’re the one who sees the soft tissue change that’s been sitting there for three months.
That medical history alone - the one you spend real time gathering - is the foundation of half of what I do in oral medicine. Medications, autoimmune history, recent illness, stress. None of my differential diagnoses work without it.
So I’m genuinely curious:
When you find an oral lesion or soft tissue finding - what does your workflow look like?
• Do you have a clear path to refer, or does it go into the chart and quietly disappear?
• Do you feel like your findings get taken seriously?
• Has a patient ever come back and you realized something you flagged early actually mattered?
For those of you in the New River Valley / southwest Virginia area - would genuinely love to connect. Looking forward to being part of this community. 👋