by Mark Hartley
[email protected]
www.myspace.com/MarkhRDH
www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=706112064
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/4/52/872
Lynne Slim, author of the Periodontal Therapy column in RDH, sent me an update on how she was doing on her next column, writing it just a few weeks ago when the Christmas decorations were still in full brilliance. She concluded, “Hope you are enjoying a joyful holiday season. I ate five Christmas cookies tonight but don’t tell a soul!” OK, Lynne, I won’t tell anyone.
I likewise hope everyone made it through the season full of excitement about 2010. I ate too many cookies myself, particularly a concoction known as Florence’s Fingers.
The January issue is also when I tell you where to find the annual salary survey. Hold it right there! Don’t go flipping through the pages. You won’t find it here.
Kristine Hodsdon and I collaborated on an online version of the salary survey all through the latter months of 2009. RDH eVillage published the entire article (five parts spread across several issues.)
The good news is that the articles are still there for your viewing pleasure.
Here are the directions. Go three blocks to DentistryIQ.com, make a right at the Home button, and then go four blocks to the “Hygiene Department” and dive in.
Or you could just type in “salary survey” in the search function at the top right corner of the DentistryIQ home page.
More good news is that the statistical information in the five parts of the RDH eVillage salary survey is much more detailed than it ever was in the past in RDH. There was no guy standing there with a hatchet, warning, “You can fill up five pages in RDH; anything over that gets cut off.”
We never liked that guy anyway.
Kristine and I also enjoyed collaborating recently on the best states to be a dental hygienist. Since we’re not about to seriously suggest that everyone move to Iowa (No. 1 in the ranking), or leave California (No. 43), most of the article is tongue-in-cheek. But the rankings were for real, weighted by “ease in rendering preventive care,” “ease in making a living” and “ease in enjoying life.”
The article appeared in a December issue of RDH eVillage. But you can find the article by following the same directions that you take to the salary survey articles. Just type in “best states” in the search function.
However, here are some statistics that you can find here in good ol’ RDH. The Lanmark Group, a public relations firm based in New Jersey, recently conducted a survey of the dental hygiene profession.
Michael McCarthy, the chief strategy officer for Lanmark, shared the results with me at the Greater New York meeting last month. Some interesting things to note include:
- Only 20% of dental hygienists do not participate in social media, and 46% have a Facebook profile.
- 57% check e-mail accounts while at work.
- Only 16% predicted changing careers within the next five years, and 57% would encourage their children to consider dental hygiene as a profession.
- 52% said they would “further” their “status” by pursuing an advanced degree in dental hygiene (such as the ADHA’s advanced dental hygiene practitioner).
- 74% feel their office allows them enough time to perform dental hygiene duties for each patient, and 61% think they work with state-of-the-art instrumentation.
- 52% note a drop-off in hygiene production due to the recession — a fact discussed at length in the RDH eVillage surveys.
I thank Michael and Lanmark for sharing the above information. Here’s hoping 2010 is a prosperous, fruitful year for all of us.
