Text II. Dental assistants

Assistants are valuable members of the dental care team. They greatly increase the efficiency of the dentist work because get everything ready for the procedures and fulfil a number of different tasks. The duties of a dental assistant are among the most comprehensive and varied in the dental office. They can perform procedures requiring both impersonal and technical skill.

Some of their specific tasks while dealing with patients are to help the patients feel comfortable before, during and after the treatment, to provide patients with the instructions for oral care, to show the main ways of brushing and flossing.

Among the professional skills of dental assistants there are his or her ability to take and develop dental radiographs, take blood pressure, prepare and sterilize the instruments, to assist during the procedures. They also must answer the calls, order the necessary equipment and make the appointments with certain specialists.

As usual, dental assistants in the USA do not need to earn any advanced college degrees. They can receive education through an academic program at a community college, vocational school, technical institute, or through on-the-job training.

Dental assistants may become certified by passing an examination. The examination is administered by Dental Assisting National Board.

1. Speak on the use of pronouns some, any and their derivatives and find the examples in the text.

2. Find all the modal verbs in the text and explain their meaning.

Translation

Translate the text (share the paragraphs) devoted to the history of dentistry and its main advances. Point out the main stages in the development of human knowledge about oral cavity structures.

Dentistry advances

Though the dental profession has changed a great deal during the last century, it has changed even more through the ages. Many of the most common dental tools were used as early as the Stone Age. Here is a look at the history of dentistry and how it came to be a vital component of our health care needs.

Development of dentistry knowledge.

One of the world’s most ancient civilizations, located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, left documents, which cited almost 52 rules for care of the teeth, including bleaching of discoloured teeth and the prevention of the bad breath. Inscriptions on tombstones in about 3000 BC indicated that “tooth doctors” were already considered to be medical specialists in that period. This means that dentistry existed approximately 5000 years ago!

The Ancient Egyptians are considered to be the earliest civilized people in the world. They made a serious study of the human body, including the oral cavity. The early tribes in Mexico and Peru used gold and precious stones to decorate their teeth. One of the oldest known medical works containing references to dentistry is the Chinese Canon of Medicine written in about 2700 BC.

A Greek philosopher Aristotle made the earliest attempt to discuss the teeth from the purely scientific point of view. He had described human teeth and then compared them with teeth of several animals. But Aristotle made a mistake - he believed that men had 32 teeth and women only 28! This mistake was corrected only in the 16th century by doctor Andreas Vesalius. He also classified the teeth as incisors, canines and molars. Much information about the teeth was gathered in the 16th century by Bartholommeo Eustacheo, who studied the teeth, their blood and nerve supplies, and the phenomenon of the first and second dentition. He published the first book for dental professionals in 1563. It contained 30 chapters. He described the crowns of teeth according to classes.

Books on general medicine often included sections on teeth, but the first book devoted entirely to dentistry appeared only in the 16th century. A small booklet was published anonymously in Germany. The author discussed such topics as toothache, loose teeth and so on. It was a book for patients, not for professionals.

In 1840, the first college for the systematic education of dentists was established, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. The history of dentistry as profession has begun at this date.

The invention of a toothbrush and a toothpaste.

The first toothbrushes were small sticks or twigs mashed at one end to create a broader cleaning surface. The Romans used a special powder for cleaning their teeth. However, the modern toothbrush was not invented until 1498, when a Chinese dentist developed such a brush for the royal family. Europe adopted the bristle brush in the 17th century. The first electric toothbrush was marketed in 1880. In 1961 the first cordless model was developed and proved to be popular with consumers and dentists. Toothpaste also saw its earliest form in ancient civilizations. Early toothpaste ingredients included powdered fruit, burnt or ground shells, talc, honey and dried flowers. Various recipes continued to appear throughout ancient history and the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, many of these toothpastes contained corrosive elements that dissolved tooth enamel.

Toothpaste as we know it emerged in the 1800s, with ingredients that included soap and chalk. In 1892, the first collapsible tube was marketed and was considered supreme until 1984 when the pump-dispenser was introduced. In 1956, Proctor & Gamble introduced Crest brand toothpaste with fluoride.

What's the history behind false teeth?

Ancient civilizations used ivory and bone to create new teeth. In about the second century AD the Chinese developed “silver paste” (amalgam) for fillings. This happened more than a thousand years before dentists in the West discovered this material! Etruscans who lived in Italy during the seventh century BC, made the first real attempts to make dental prostheses (false teeth). They also made narrow bands of pure gold to put around loose teeth. The Romans could make false teeth and even removable dentures from ivory. During the Middle Ages these techniques were largely lost. Thanks to modern technology, today's false teeth are largely indistinguishable from real teeth. This wasn't always the case. Perhaps the most famous false-toothed American was the first president, George Washington. As a matter of fact, the first president's false teeth came from a variety of sources, including teeth extracted from human and animal corpses.

In 1774 two Frenchmen, a pharmacist and a dentist, designed a set of porcelain teeth. Steady improvements were made on the teeth, most notably in 1808 when an Italian dentist invented a single porcelain tooth imbedded with a platinum pin. These teeth came to America in 1822, and for the rest of the century dentists and technicians improved their design. A breakthrough occurred in 1839 with the discovery of vulcanized rubber, which was used to hold false teeth. Today's dentures are made of either plastic or ceramic.

How long have we had anesthesia?

The early tribes in Mexico and Peru used narcotic substances in the treatment of different disorders, including dental diseases. In China, where medicine began in about 2800 BC, medical men invented acupuncture. They used special very thin needles for that purpose. These needles were also used to relieve dental pain. But still, painless extraction wasn't available until the 1830s. In the beginning, teeth were removed with a well-placed chisel and a hard swing of a mallet. Thousands of years later, during peaks of the great Greek and Roman civilizations, physicians practiced a form of anesthetic to give some relief to patients during surgical treatment.

In the 1790s, a British chemist began to experiment with the use of nitrous oxide as a pain-inhibitor and noted that its most famous side effect, laughing. So the gas was nicknamed “laughing gas”. One of the persons who contributed to the discovery of anaesthesia was a dentist Horace Wells. In 1844 he arranged a demonstration on the effects of nitrous oxide. Intrigued with the possibilities of this gas, he administrated some to himself and asked a colleague to extract one of his teeth. The operation was entirely painless. Consequently, Doctor Wells employed nitrous oxide in his dental practice.

On September 30th, 1846 an American dentist William Morton successfully performed the first tooth extraction under ether. He had made extensive prior experiments on animals and on himself. The first dental extraction under anesthetic (ether) in Great Britain was performed by Dr Robinson on December 19th, 1846. The operation lasted only four minutes and the patient felt no pain.

In 1863 the gas was combined with oxygen. Just prior to the 1900s, cocaine was used, but once its addictive qualities were identified, the search began for a suitable alternative. Many of the alternatives were forms of synthetic cocaine until 1905 when a German chemist discovered procaine, which he named Novocain. The anesthetic proved extremely popular with dental professionals. It was the beginning of the epoch of “painless dentistry."

Speaking

1. Summarize the information (working in pairs or groups) on different dentistry specialties and complete the chart:

S pecialists	Required level of education	Requirements of licensing	Duties	Social status, perspectives
Dental therapist
Dental hygienist
Dental assistant
Dental technician

2. Discuss the opportunities of getting these specialties and your personal preferences.