Once the pt is seated I sit down on my chair so that I am eye level with them.
"Hello, my name is myrdh, I am the dental hygienist in the office that will be working with you today."
I tell ALL pts what I will be doing for them today.
"Welcome to (or back to) our office. Today I am going to start by taking some radiographs of your teeth so that we can check for cavities, evaluate the supporting bone structure of your teeth and make sure all of your existing work is looking good. After that I will be doing a cancer screening for you, and taking measurements of your gums to check the supporting structures of your teeth for infections."
 
Then I take whatever radiographs are requested by the Dr. Once I have the radiographs (digital) I sit with the pt and show them the "suspicious" areas that I see in there mouth. This includes, caries, fillings, bone levels, calculus, etc. This way when the Dr. comes in for an exam the pt has already heard about areas of concern.
After this I tell them what we will be doing for the rest of the app  

This was a first for me today. I had a patient with an eyelash stuck interproximally between 23 and 24 on the lingual that I could not get out for the life of me with with floss or the scaler. Finally I had to cut it off??

Recently the offices that I work has have hired consultants. Both of the companies have been talking about using "scripts." These are what they want us to say when we are with our patients. While developing this site I did a lot of research on the subjects of scripts and so I have decided to share with you my "script." I will be doing this in several different posts over the next few days so stay tuned.....

I have decided to help my fellow hygienists out by making a post for each day that I work of something new or helpful that I have learned.

     So first post...... today I learned that if you are numbing for the Dr. don't just give a measly amount of anesthetic. Give enough to get the job done. For example, when doing root debridment I usually give 1/2 carp of lidocaine on a mandibular IA because it anesthetizes what I need well and I don't have to worry about overdosing if I for some reason can't find the dang nerve (you need about 8 carps to overdose but the pt feels you are overdosing if you have to give them 2.)
       So if numbing for the Dr. just give them them whole sha-bang then everyone is a little more comfortable!