How Much Do Dental Assistants Make?

When looking for a new career, there's many things you need to look at, like what the job description will be, and whether or not you will like doing the type of work that's involved. Of course, the salary is also of prime importance, since that's what will be bringing food on your table. If you like dentists, and working on teeth, but don't want to spend the amount of time studying that dentists do, then maybe dental assistants would be the job for you. But what do these people do, and how much do they make?

Before looking at the salary, it's important to know what's involved in the career of being a dental assistant. Some early skills you must have is an obsession for cleanliness. The main goal in working with teeth is making sure they are all clean and in good health, so obviously before giving that kind of advice to others, you have to apply it to yourself first. If you have a history of bad teeth, or not taking care of your own mouth, then chances are you won't project a very good image to your clients. Also, dental assistants work with people all day, so having a certain charisma is crucial. You need to be there to help the dentist and the client, but also to comfort them, and answer questions. So being good with people is a definite plus. If you have those skills, then going through college to become a dental assistant isn't that painful. Certainly you don't need to do graduate studies like dentists do, but you still need a college certificate or technical degree. You need the basic skills to work on teeth, in order to be employed.

Once you're done with your training, you can typically get into an internship before being employed full time. Your day to day work here will be fairly routine. Your main task will be assisting dentists, and going through the initial check up. This can mean cleaning people's mouths, brushing their teeth, giving them x-ray scans when something seems out of the order, and giving instruments to dentists when it comes time for them to inspect the client. It's a very manual work, where you constantly work with your hands, so you must be willing to do that for long periods of times. However, there isn't a lot of stress or demand on your own skills, which is why training is fairly short, and as a consequence, the salary is fairly in line. Most dental assistants earn around $33,000 as far as base salary goes. Some will earn more, if they work for prestigious private clinics, but typically it doesn't go much higher.

Overall, there's no question that dentists earn a lot more money, but that's because they go through college for many years, and they have a lot of responsibilities, including diagnosing potential illnesses. As a dental assistant, your main job will be to assist these people, and as such the salary is lower than expected for a full dentist.