Dentaltown January 2017 - 49

office
visit
It sounds like the area in Hawaii where
you grew up had an epidemic of decay.
Did it ever get better while you were
growing up there?

cross-researching drug interaction and side
effects with the massive and overwhelming
amount of drug information out there?

With all the silver-capped children around
me, I think this prompted the government
to do something about this oral epidemic.
Parents of the schoolchildren had to fill out
and sign permission forms for us to get fluoride
applications at the health room. The line to
have the fluoride application was by classroom
and it took a long time for our turn to sit in
the two makeshift dental chairs and have the
lady stuff cotton rolls in our mouths and then
clamp this silver jig under our chins. While
all the other kids were freaking out from the
metal garners and gagging from the fluoride
gel, I was enjoying every bit of it. I remember
the f luoride tasted like grape, like all the
delicious sour candy I ate-the likely culprit
that got me my silver caps in the first place.

You've been a hygienist for years
now and probably have seen a variety
of workflows. What's something
that your office does that increases
efficiency?

Is it safe to say that getting the
care you needed also got you very
interested in how that care worked?
Yes, but not just that. It was something
about the lady who was painting the fluoride
on my teeth. Her eyes were so kind and caring.
I knew she was going to be gentle with me. I
don't know if she felt bad for me because of
all the dental work I had done in my mouth.
Every time she came to my chair to suction
and reapply the grape fluoride, it kind of felt
like her eyes were saying, "Don't worry, child,
I will help you." I liked her so much that after
my turn was up, I wanted to go to the back to
the end of the line and have a second round,
but this time with the cherry fluoride!
Over the years, I've thought about this
lady and how caring she was. Her sympathetic
demeanor struck a chord with me. My affinity
for her grew even stronger over the years, until
in the eighth grade I really felt it was my calling
to become a dental hygienist.
My dental hygiene classmate, who went
on to pursue a pharmacology degree, tried to
recruit me to follow in her footsteps because
she knew that a career in pharmacy was another
course I've contemplated. But how could I give
up my one-on-one interaction with patients
and the instant gratification of clean teeth for

My typical workday begins by going
through my schedule and filling out a huddle
slip for each patient. Our office's huddle slip
consists of easy-to-fill-out fields and boxes to
check. For example: name and age of patient,
date of patient's last visit, time of appointment,
date of last visit, reason for visit, radiograph
status, health alerts, notes from the treatment
coordinator, periodontal probing status, any
patient preferences, watches from previous
visits. At the end of the slip is a line to fill out
for our treatment coordinator to communicate
what our next plan of action will be regarding
the patient's next visit. This part gets filled out
at the end of the patient's appointment then
handed off to the front desk.

What do you think helps keep
everyone working well together
each day?
Our entire team gets together about 15
minutes before the first appointments of the
day and goes though everyone's schedule to
acclimate everyone to the day's schedule.
Sometimes the doctor may see a hygiene
patient for restorative work fi rst, then that
patient gets passed to the hygiene department
after, or vice versa. In the latter situation, if a
restorative patient is being seen in the hygiene
schedule first, we will anesthetize the patient
for our doctors to save time and to provide a
smoother transition to the doctor.
Going through our schedules makes
everyone aware of what's going on in the
entire office, not just in our own schedules.
Of course, there may be some hiccups in the
schedule and we try our best to be mentally
prepared for any last-minute modifications
to the schedule.
At the huddle, we have a hard copy of the
schedule where the front desk will put notes
for the hygienist to add to those huddle slips

OFFICE HIGHLIGHTS
Name: Thomas Giacobbi,
DDS, FAGD, editorial director,
Dentaltown magazine;
L. Grace Giacobbi, DDS
Practice Name:
Chandler Dental Health
Graduated From: SUNY at
Buffalo School of Dental
Medicine, 1995
Practice Location:
Chandler, Arizona
Practice Size:
2,800 square feet
Staff: 15
Web site:
chandlerdentalhealth.com

dentaltown.com \\ JANUARY 2017

49
http://www.chandlerdentalhealth.com http://www.dentaltown.com
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Dentaltown January 2017
