Term Goals

As we get closer and closer to graduation, my self-expectations have been increasing.

One of the things expected of dental hygienists is to be able to maintain and improve the level
of our competency by continuous upgrading of our knowledge, skills and judgment. (CDHO,
2011) I am quite certain that me and my fellow dental hygiene students do a daily self-
assessment after seeing a client. We rationalize and contemplate on things involving our skills
as clinicians. We are provided a feedback every day in clinic, and recommendations are made to
better improve on different skills.

My goal ever since term 3 has always been to be faster and efficient when providing
treatments and finishing procedures for my clients. I could say that it is still my overall goal, and
I have been finding ways every day to be able to achieve that goal. I have definitely noticed a
big improvement with myself as a clinician. This term and for the next, I want to incorporate
improving on my research about dental hygiene practice and dental hygiene considerations to
my goals. I want to be able to provide treatments and recommendations to my clients more
confidently. Improving on this will help me be able to grow as a professional, and thus would
make me successful in meeting my requirements for graduation and prepare me for the
National Dental Hygiene Certification Board exam.

As stated in the CDHO Dental Hygiene Standards of Practice (2011), “Dental hygienists
use current and relevant information to inform client care and practice decisions. The
successful application of knowledge requires dental hygienists to analyze, synthesize and
evaluate all new knowledge before applying it to practice.” “Dental hygienists acknowledge that
continual inquiry and learning is a paramount to professional practice and client-centered care.
During their professional career, dental hygienists shall maintain continuous competency by
participating in a process that continually verifies the individual dental hygienist’s ability to
perform and apply knowledge, skills, judgments and attitudes that contribute to the safety and
quality of client outcomes and the evidence base for dental hygiene practice.” I plan on
continuing to apply the knowledge that I acquire from our theory classes in my clinical practice,
and constantly find ways on improving my clinical skills by utilizing reliable educational
resources that are readily available for us from books and online. The CDHO Knowledge
Network has been a great help in being able to achieve this goal. Niagara College Library also
offers a wide variety of articles online under EBSCOhost Web that are relevant to the dental
hygiene practice. It has also been very helpful with our research for our class projects. I feel
grateful that there are resources that are reliant and very educational for us students and
future dental hygienists to apply in our practice.

College of Dental Hygienists of Ontario. (2011, January). Dental Hygiene Standards of Practice.
Retrieved from http://www.cdho.org/docs/default-source/pdfs/standards-of-
practice/standardsofpractice.pdf?sfvrsn=4.