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CONTACT: Badger Institute President Mike Nichols, 262-389-8239 or [email protected].
When its Legislature authorized dental therapists a decade ago, Minnesota became the first state in the nation to license dental therapists. Dentists were initially overwhelmingly opposed but have had a collective change of heart.
“Dentists were wary. They weren’t ready to change. I saw surveys when the legislation passed that 80 percent did not want dental therapists,” says Karl Self, a dentist and dental educator who directs the dental therapy program at the University of Minnesota.
He has tracked attitudes about dental therapists from Minnesota dentists and is preparing to publish his findings in a scholarly journal. Spoiler alert: He’s found that attitudes — and the employment picture for dental therapists — have changed dramatically.
“Now 60 to 70 percent (of dentists) support the change, and in the last two to three years, we’ve reached a tipping point. Now we don’t have enough dental therapists for the dentists who want to hire them. Dentists are always asking us why we can’t produce more,” Self says.
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