Dental Hygiene/Therapy: How it compare to dentistry!?!

Hi all,
I’m in year 12 and hoping to do dental hygiene/therapy. I originally wanted to do dentistry but couldn’t knack chemistry. How does it compare to dentistry work wise? How limited is the work you can do as a dental hygienist/therapist? Also best unis... Doing A-level Psychology, Biology and BTEC Business. Should achieve BB Distinction.

Thank you!

As a dental hygiene therapist you perform some preventative treatments on patients such as scale and polish, fillings, extractions and taking dental radiographs, no complex treatments such as root treatments, but you still will work closely with all levels of dental professionals. You still usually work with a dental nurse but you are the lead. Like dentistry getting onto a course is hard as it is very competitive so in terms of the best unis i personally wouldn’t be picky, apply to the unis that you like the look of and that have good facilities. Im currently in my final year of a levels, i have an offer from Teesside but have been rejected from GCU and Liverpool. Hope this helps you😊

Thank you! How does career development work with hygiene and therapy? I know with dentistry there are lots of different specialisations. Are there lots of options for a hygienist/therapy as well? What options did you take and what grades are you predicted?

Some unis after completing the hygiene therapy course allow you to progress onto the dentistry course but im not fully sure on which unis offer this. You can go onto orthodontic therapy and you can do additional training courses such as teeth whitening to improve your abilities. As well as doing postgraduate training and masters. I am taking History Sociology and Health and Social Care with an anatomy and physiology module. Most unis do state they want biology a level and as i haven’t got this i was worried i wouldn’t even get interviews. I have a lot of shadowing experience and was able to talk about it in my personal statement. Typically unis want Around BBB and my predicted grades are ABB

Thank you so much Emily! I’ve got Biology so I’ve got that going for me. I want to get some dentistry experience soon. Seeing you’ve done so much is there anything you suggest I add to work experience letters? Stuff they’d look out for when choosing applicants? Anything else you know they like to see on CV/personal statements? I started the ‘Discover dentistry’ futurelearn course which my sixth form said is great to do and it’s super interesting but anything else would be very welcome!