Six readings a tooth, before anybody has treated anything
Periodontics is the one specialty built around hygienists rather than around a dentist with hygienists attached. If charting, maintenance intervals and long appointments are the part of the job you actually like, this is your chair.
Six teeth in one quadrant, six sites a tooth
Thirty-six readings, and the mouth has three more quadrants
0/36
Sites charted
0
Reading 4mm or more
0
Deepest
Illustrative numbers, not patient data. Now do the rest of the mouth, and then remember all of it has to be recorded, compared with last time, and explained to the person in the chair.
What a perio day is actually like
Two practices in one building
A perio practice runs a hygiene side and a surgical side on the same day, often in adjacent rooms. Cover is not interchangeable between them, which is why a request that just says hygienist is not much use to anybody.
The appointments are long and they stay long
Scaling and root planing under anaesthetic is not a recall appointment with more time allocated. The pace is different, the fatigue is different, and it is a genuine physical job.
You are the one having the difficult conversation
Somebody has to explain to a patient that this is not going to be fixed in one visit, that the maintenance interval is now shorter, and why. In perio that person is usually the hygienist, appointment after appointment.
Continuity actually matters here
Comparing today's chart with the one from six months ago is most of the clinical value. A practice that has to hand a perio patient to a different person every visit loses something real, which is why perio offices ask for somebody who has seen the chart before.
Who periodontal practices ask us for
- Registered dental hygienist
- The centre of a perio practice. Charting, scaling and root planing, maintenance intervals, and the conversations that go with them.
- Surgical assistant
- Grafts, implant placement, crown lengthening. Closer to oral surgery assisting than to general chairside work.
- Dental assistant
- The hygiene side, the surgical side, or both. Practices are specific about which, and they should be.
- Front office and treatment coordination
- Referrals in from general practices, staged treatment plans, and insurance conversations that are rarely simple.
Periodontists are placed through our permanent side rather than as temp cover.
Experience a perio request can ask for
- Periodontal charting
- Scaling and root planing
- Maintenance and recall intervals
- Graft and implant assisting
- Suture handling
- Local anaesthetic, where your registration and jurisdiction allow
You list what you have done and requests reach the people who have listed it. We verify licensing and insurance on temp placements. What your registration permits, including anaesthetic, is set by your province or state rather than by us.
Working through us
Five things worth knowing before you sign up
None of them are surprising. That is rather the point.
Put perio on your profile
Perio practices like asking for somebody they have had before, because continuity is worth something clinically. A good day is often what gets you the next offer.