Dental Hygiene Program

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Student-Patient Relations

  1. Students must be prompt for patient appointments. Patient cancellations and failures must be recorded in the patient’s contact notes. Excessive failures, cancellations or persistent tardiness, documented in the EPR, may justify patient dismissal. The PCC must be consulted prior to discontinuation of patient treatment.
  2. Every patient must check out with the receptionist after each visit, regardless of whether there was a fee associated with the appointment. A walkout receipt must be provided to each patient at each visit.
  3. All patient related conflicts and adverse incidents must be recorded in the progress notes of the patient record, signed by the student and swiped by faculty. In addition, a Special Incident Report may be required. Please see the PCC for assistance.
  4. Visitors, family and friends of patients are not permitted in the treatment area without permission from the supervising instructor.
  5. Before treating a severely apprehensive or argumentative patient, consult with your supervising instructor or a GP Director.
  6. If a student is uncertain or has difficulty completing a procedure, the supervising instructor should be consulted immediately. Unexpected outcomes in treatment must be recorded in the patient record and the patient must be fully informed.

Guidelines for Faculty Intervention for Patient Treatment

Department of Dental Hygiene faculty and students adhere to the following guidelines to determine when faculty should intervene and provide patient treatment:

  • When a student needs to complete patient in a given appointment and cannot finish by the end of the clinical session, faculty may complete the treatment services. This will be done in special circumstances, such as:
    • Patient has been in for more than the usual number of appointments required for a defined difficulty level;
    • Patient is pre-medicated and/or of anti-coagulant therapy, and could be completed in that appointment with faculty intervention;
    • Other extenuating circumstances that would make it difficult or impossible for the patient to return for another appointment to complete treatment.
  • When the scaling and root planning are extremely difficult due to heavy deposits and/or complicating oral or systemic factors, faculty may complete selected areas of the mouth. This is done only when required to keep the number of appointments to a reasonable level and when the student has had sufficient experience with the patient to ensure development of instrumentation skills with heavy deposit.