Behind the scenes: brush like a pro

As learners progress through Discover Dentistry, it will become clear that dentistry is a team sport. In addition to dentists, we also explore the other dental professions: the dental nurse, dental technician and dental hygienist.

For the latter, we wanted to do more than simply describe the role of the dental hygienist and instead actually see what they do on a day to day basis, and in doing so students could also learn a little about oral health education (which is a large part of the role). To do this, Chris Stokes took himself along to meet Hygienist Jill Rushforth to explore what it means to ‘brush like a pro’.

The video we ended up making for the course shows very clearly how a dental hygienist works, educating the patient (in this case Chris) about toothbrush selection and brushing technique, while also offering some genuinely useful information to use yourself when you’re in front of the mirror in the morning. When you watch the video, look out for the weather; it was the windiest day we’ve ever known in Sheffield and it was doing its best to get into shot!

Throughout the course we will visit all the dental team to see them doing their jobs. We’ll go and meet a dental technician and see how dentures are made, see a dentist conduct a dental check-up on a patient and we’ll get into detail about the surgery, tools and charts. We’ll also observe how a dental nurse works so closely with a dentist it is like watching a choreographed dance.