Continuing A Tale of Two Hygienists’ series on the integration of oral health care into other fields, this week’s guests are two hygienists who act as bridges between the dental world and the medical world.
Mary Signorino is both a registered dental hygienist and a registered nurse who knows firsthand how the two professions can effectively overlap. Jamie Freitag-Dooley is a dental hygienist, coach, professional speaker and executive director of the National Network of Healthcare Hygienists, which aims to integrate oral health promotion into more areas of the medical industry.
In this episode, Mary discusses how she combines her skills as a dental hygienist with her work as a nurse, while Jamie lays out why dental hygienists should step into the limelight and bring their skills to other medical fields.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
Interview starts: 14:48
– The important lessons Mary learned while working at a private practice under a retired naval officer.
– Mary discusses her period working in Switzerland and explains what prompted her to take up nursing.
– What is FAST and what does it have to do with treating strokes?
– What both dental hygienists and nurses can do to more effectively work together.
– Breaking down what Jamie wants to accomplish through the National Network of Healthcare Hygienists.
– Why Jamie doesn’t expect private medicine to push back against NNHH.
– The reason dental hygienists need to step forward and put themselves and their skills out there.
QUOTES:
“After 15 years of working in dental hygiene, I wanted to expand how I take care of a person.”
“I studied the head and the neck, and now I’m gonna go work on the neck on down.”
“You can’t tell someone to care unless they care themselves.”
“We always care, there’s always a passion, there’s a mission somewhere deep inside us.”
“When I found out all of the barriers that were present, I knew we needed to do something big to change it.”
“People keep saying ‘break down the silos’ [but] that’s not working; we’ve got to be the bridge.”
“Listen to what your heart calls you to.”
“This is gonna continue to evolve and we always have a voice in where this goes.”
LINKS:
Mary’s email: dalmatianbabies@yahoo.com
Jamie’s website – https://jamiedooley.com/
Jamie on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/jamieismycoach/
National Network of Healthcare Hygienists – https://healthcarehygienists.org/
Hygienists in Healthcare Facebook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/hygienistsinhealthcare/
Thank you to Paradise Dental Technologies aka PDT for providing sponsorship for this episode!
Be sure to thank the sponsor for this episode by heading over to www.PDTDental.com and picking up a new instrument or telling them thank you in person at one of the conferences!
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