Improve Our Care, Not Our Workforce

Danny Warner, DDS, is the new president of the Washington State Dental Association.  He recently released an op-ed piece in the Seattle Times. It discusses how dentists, lawmakers, and the public should be thoughtful and cautious about creating a new dental therapist role in Washington.  We have some effective programs in place for helping our state's most at-risk patients--those being children--with dental disease. And if the current population of dental patients worked more consistently to prevent their dental troubles (see my post), this topic of adding dental therapists to the workforce would likely be swept off the lawmakers' tables. I wrote about this issue a few months ago.  I feel the position Dr. Warner takes is sound and reasonable.