A Dental Health Aide Therapist’s Perspective

By Kari Kuntzelman, DHAT

Dental therapy is a midlevel oral health practitioner profession. Dental therapists have been successfully working in 54 countries since 1921 when New Zealand began training what were then called “dental nurses.”¹ In the United States, 13 states have passed legislative measures to allow for the training and practice of dental therapy. In 2004, the first class of dental health aide therapist (DHAT) students returned home to Alaska after completing the DHAT program in New Zealand, and began working in their communities. Alaska then started its own program, the Alaska Dental Therapy Education Program (ADTEP), mirroring the New Zealand model.²

* References can be found in the original article via the link below.
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