This week on A Tale of Two Hygienists we are changing our TIPisode to a Tellisode! Andrew is going to tell us about his experience sitting for the Florida exam.
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Mannequin Exam
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Andrew Passes!
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Minimal Competency
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Michelle is Buying the ADA
Michelle Strange: A Tale of Two Hygienists presents this week’s TIPisode: quick and easy tips to keep you up to date and presented by the experts in the profession. Now, get ready for your unofficial TIPisode.
Hello, everyone. We have a special TIPisode this week. It’s me and Andrew.
Andrew Johnston: Hooray!
Michelle Strange: And we’re going to —
Andrew Johnston: — [Laughing].
Michelle Strange: [Laughing]. I wouldn’t call this necessarily a TIPisode.
Andrew Johnston: It’s like a rantisode.
Michelle Strange: As much as we —
Andrew Johnston: — It is a…
Michelle Strange: A tellisode. It’s a tellisode. We’re going to tell you guys Andrew’s journey.
Andrew Johnston: Yeah. We’re going to — okay. So I want to start of by being like — look, this is probably going to get me in a little bit of hot water, and if you have downloaded this episode, you’ve listened to it, and then later on you go back to find it and it’s gone, it’s because I got in trouble [laughing] for saying these things, so.
Michelle Strange: [Laughing]. Why would you get in trouble?
Andrew Johnston: I just have a feeling, like — I don’t know. Either the CDCA or the Florida State or Department of Health, someone’s going to get pissed about the things I want to say. I’ll try and keep it — I’ll keep it nice-ish.
Michelle Strange: Well — but — but I — also, people get pissed off about things that need to be said. No one likes the truth sometimes, and our system is busted, broken, and dumb.
Andrew Johnston: Right. Right.
Michelle Strange: Duuummb.
Andrew Johnston: I — also, can I apologize at the very beginning of this? I think I’m going to come off as really arrogant, and I don’t intend it to be that way.
Michelle Strange: You are.
Andrew Johnston: But it’s just — it’s kind of like — well, we say it on the podcast all the time of, you know, like, uh, man-made borderline doesn’t change people’s teeth from three feet to the left to three feet to the right or three feet to the north, three feet to the south. So why would all of a sudden the ability to practice as a dental hygienist change?
So I want to keep that as, like, our guiding start as we’re talking about this. But a little bit of background for those who are kind of newer to the podcast, maybe just listening to a TIPisode for their first time like who’s Andrew?
So I graduated in 2009 in Washington State, and I got my dental hygiene license. For those that also don’t know about Washington State, the scope of practice is incredibly large there. So, as your basic license as soon as you go through the programs in Washington and actually many of the Oregon programs as well, then you sit for boards. And the board is restorative, so doing fillings, both composite, amalgam, are part of the — um, you know, anterior and posterior now I think are part of the exam.
When I was doing it, it was posterior for both of them. But we could also do build ups. We can do a lot of different things as — and temporaries. Like, all that stuff was in our scope of practice. We could also do local anesthesia. We had to sit for a board for that also. One was written. One was practical. And — but this was also part of our — just our basic education. So, when you have — when you are a hygienist in Washington State, you’re also a “restorative hygienist,” which I think is kind of a weird thing, but yeah. That’s a whole different thing.
So I also, then, went and got my license in Oregon because I was working for a company that had offices in Washington and Oregon, and I ended up getting your hygiene license there. But then you had to have a restorative endorsement and nitrous oxide and local anesthesia permits I think is what they call them.
Michelle Strange: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Johnston: There’s a couple, like, add-ons to this thing. And then, if you have those permits, then you have to do extra CE to be able to maintain those and this, that, and the other. But, oddly enough, not for the restorative part, which I think is so dumb by the way. I think Washington —
Michelle Strange: — Ugh.
Andrew Johnston: — and Oregon should have mandatory —
Michelle Strange: — That’s crazy.
Andrew Johnston: Huh?
Michelle Strange: That’s crazy.
Andrew Johnston: I know. I know. It’s one of those things that not a lot of hygienists actually end up practicing as a restorative hygienist, so I don’t think that they think it’s that big of a deal.
Michelle Strange: Oh. Okay.
Andrew Johnston: But I think that it should be because then maybe it’ll make people want to do it more. And then, if they’re paid on production, they can make a lot more production. Anyways. A whole tangent. Sorry, I won’t go down that one.
So, um — and then, as many of you know, I moved down to Florida in August of 2020 during this weird pandemic that we’re having. I got a job offer as director of hygiene. So I’m director of hygiene at a company. We have over 100 offices, and my role there is a lot of teaching, training, mentoring, running the numbers, making sure that we’re in line with all of our KPIs and all that kind of stuff. So it’s really fun. I really enjoy it.
But one of the things that they asked me to do was go ahead and get a Florida license that way it — I think when I’m sitting chairside with a lot of the hygienists and — which I do periodically — I’ll be more — I’ll be doing it a lot more as — now that I have a license. But, um, you know, there’s some things that you just need to show them hands on right on a patient if they’re not quite getting it, which again Florida has a whole ‘nother thing with laws. I mentioned this on one of the TIPisodes before about how doctors from other countries can come in and be hygienists. Even though they’d never done any perio charting or anything like that ever in their career or their life, um, they can be a hygienist in Florida. It’s a weir — it’s a whole different tangent thing.
And so — okay. So, in order for me to get my license, though, in Florida, I have to sit for another board exam. And that’s kind of where all of this, like, ridiculousness is because to get my Oregon license, I didn’t have to sit for another exam. They accepted the board exams that I sat for, which was numerous. They accepted the school that did the education, which was rigorous. And the scope of practice in Florida is actually quite a bit smaller with a lot less, um, a lot less ability to function without certain types of supervision.
So, in Washington, um, you know, we didn’t have to have the doctor check our fillings before they walked out the door. In Oregon you did, which is still fine. That’s just, you know, one of their rules. But, in Florida, they have a lot of direct supervision laws, which I think is just bizarre also.
So I had to sit for three other exams. One was the state law exam, which I think is perfectly acceptable and should be continued because we do have just different scopes and different supervision laws. Also, I had to sit for what they call the OSCE, and I can’t remember what that stands for. It’s like objective something computerized exam. And all they asked me on those ones — and I can’t say a lot of it because I signed, like, this, like, nondisclosure thing. But it was a lot of the same questions that I had on my national board exam and a lot of questions that if you’ve practiced at all in dentistry, um — they’ll show you a picture of a pedo tooth, and they just say, “Which number is that?” Or they’ll say, “What’s going on here?” And you’ll be like, “Well, this is, like, a retained primary tooth,” or “This is, you know, whatever the thing is.”
And so, like, it’s super easy. I don’t know exactly what my score is because I didn’t — they said, just, you passed 75 or above. I feel pretty close to like I aced it, though. Like, it’s not — it’s really easy.
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The one that I have a problem with is the practical. The one you sit for. And, um, you know, many of you listening to this if you didn’t graduate during the pandemic, you had a live patient exam, and you brought them, and it was stressful. And Michelle hates this exam, like, with all of her being.
Michelle Strange: Yup.
Andrew Johnston: And — [Laughing].
Michelle Strange: Yup.
Andrew Johnston: And, uh, and basically that board has to — or that patient has to qualify for the board, and then you do the practical, and then the examiners come in and check to make sure you were able to clean the teeth properly. Okay.
So during the pandemic, however, because we’re reducing aerosol-generating procedures and we’re trying to do everything we can to keep the spread of diseas —
Michelle Strange: — communicable diseases to a minimum?
Andrew Johnston: [Laughing]. Yeah. That’s the one.
Michelle Strange: [Laughing].
Andrew Johnston: Um, and so they’re like, “Okay. We’re going to do manikin exams.” And manikin exams — I said, “Perfect,” because I don’t know anyone here in Florida. This is going to be so great. And the governor did an executive order or something or a proclamation or something like that so that they could, um — we could do it on — our practical on a manikin up until a certain time, which I just found out they extended that time, um, so which is good. Except for the manikin is a plastic tooth son of a gun that I really hated. It is so not even like our real-life exam.
So I’ve said this on the podcast too. I feel like I’m just repeating a lot of the things that I’ve said in the past years, but this might be new for some people. When I practiced, I used American Eagle Sharpen-Free Instruments. I love them. They’re so sharp, and they stay sharp for me for quite some time. And so I had recently purchased some last year, end of the year before maybe in, like, December 2019, and then I used them for a few months, and then the pandemic, right?
And so, um, these ones were incredibly sharp, and all I felt like — and it’s hard to describe the feeling of what this fake calculus was. But I think it was — Ugh. If you can imagine —
Michelle Strange: — I mean, I think if you’ve tried — anybody who’s been in school or is teaching knows this calculus because it’s on all models now.
Andrew Johnston: Is it?
Michelle Strange: Yeah.
Andrew Johnston: It’s, like, gooey. It felt like a —
Michelle Strange: — [Cross talk].
Andrew Johnston: — hot glue gun had been dabbed onto this plastic model, and a little bit had set up, and so it was a little bit harder than, like, what the hot glue would end up being. Like the pre-melted glue, it’s a little bit harder than that, but not significantly so. And so, like, when you’re scraping it off, it doesn’t come off as, like, a chunk of calculus like you’re used to, um, or as kind of like a rock-like structure. So anything that’s — that feels that way, it doesn’t feel like that at all.
And so you had to do a detection area. You had to do a removal area. And you could see this black stuff kind of coming out, but when I touched it with my glove and I tried to feel it, like, between my forefinger and my thumb, it didn’t have any sort of, like, um, crystalline structure at all. It was very frustrating.
Michelle Strange: Yeah. Well, what I found frustrating about this whole thing — well, outside of what the hell? Like, you are a practicing clinician in a state that has a much bigger scope of practice like you mentioned. And the fact that you would ever have to bring a patient — because this is what I see. You are a practicing clinician up until, you know, the pandemic, obviously, and if you had moved [sic], you would have been practicing up until that movement seeing a bazillion patients a week because you were a crazy person.
Andrew Johnston: Right.
Michelle Strange: And then to leave and go to Florida and be forced to take this exam again. However, on the flip side of that, let’s say somebody left the country, let’s say a spouse was deployed and they kept their license in whatever state, didn’t practice for five years, but could still come back and still see patients.
Andrew Johnston: Mm-hmm.
Michelle Strange: Like, it — make it make sense, y’all. It does not make any sense. And, for me to — like, I totally agree with you with the jurisprudence, the legal stuff, the ethics. I think a few practitioners could be reminded of some ethical situations.
Andrew Johnston: [Laughing].
Michelle Strange: I think that’s totally fair.
Andrew Johnston: Mm-hmm.
Michelle Strange: I would even say maybe a little — even though the whole idea of taking anything near our national board gives me so much PTSD —
Andrew Johnston: — [Laughing].
Michelle Strange: — I can’t even handle it, but I would even call that fair.
Andrew Johnston: Yeah.
Michelle Strange: Maybe even some newer things like here’s a study guide of the things we’re going to touch on. Going back to the old school, like, national board seems dumb too, but let’s bring up some new — like, let’s talk antibiotic stewardship. Let’s talk about, like, the ADA saying we need to do airway assessment. Here are the things we are doing these days, right? Just in case you had a lapse.
Andrew Johnston: Yeah. Yeah.
Michelle Strange: But to bring a patient or do a manikin seems, ugh. It makes me want to scream into a void.
Andrew Johnston: Yeah.
Michelle Strange: I feel like I am screaming into a void when we talk about the regulations in dentistry.
Andrew Johnston: So I haven’t even really even gotten to, like, another layer of the frustration that I have —
Michelle Strange: — Ah, yes.
Andrew Johnston: — which is now I have to have a Georgia license. [Laughing]. And so the Georgia license doesn’t accept the CDCA exam that I just sat for that I paid $1,000 for all of the exams plus $1,000 in travel and all of that.
Michelle Strange: Makes me want to rage.
Andrew Johnston: [Laughing]. But now I have to pa — so there’s two paths for — I think for many states, and one of them is, you know, you can do it by credentials, or you can do it by exam. And so, with mine, I have to tabulate all of my hours to make sure I actually qualified for the 1,000 hours with the pandemic. I think I did. It’s — it was very close. And so, um — but yeah. There’s, like, some volunteer hours I have to look at too and see if those count or any of the other kind of stuff.
So anyways. So, um, the interesting thing is they don’t take the WREB or the CDCA exam. They take CRDTS and only CRDTS. And so, if I don’t have the hours that I need, then I have to sit for another exam. And it essentially is just the one — like the practical part of it, which I just passed, and this one, they don’t have the manikin . They don’t —
Michelle Strange: — And, btdubs, you are a CRDTS examiner.
Andrew Johnston: Oh yeah. By the way, I’m a CRDTS examiner too.
Michelle Strange: This is the irony that — yeah. This is the part that —
Andrew Johnston: — Yeah.
Michelle Strange: — you should just automatic be, like, ope he’s an examiner? Done.
Andrew Johnston: Yeah.
Michelle Strange: You should pass all of them [laughing] —
Andrew Johnston: — Yeah.
Michelle Strange: — just automatically.
Andrew Johnston: I should. And so, um, there’s a lot — anyway, there’s a lot of frustration there.
So, if I — here’s the other thing, though. It’s like if I — even if I do qualify with my hours, so by credentialing, I still have to pay $1,000 to get this done plus like $65 here, $45 there for all the, like, background checks and all these little things. I’m going to end up spending almost $4,000 to get licensed in 2 states probably. And, I think to me, that that’s the most ridiculous thing out of everything is, um, I hear people — I don’t think that portability should be just a lawless, like, everyone should be able to practice everywhere.
Michelle Strange: Right.
Andrew Johnston: I don’t think so. And I have a hard time because Washington State, they kind of screwed me over in the fact that, um — I don’t know. They didn’t really screw me over. [Laughing]. I love Washington State. But the fact that the license is all-encompassing, all-inclusive as a basic license doesn’t allow for it to be broken down into subsets. But I also don’t necessarily want it to be because I feel like the people that were pioneering this in the 70s that have been doing this for — what? — almost 50 years we’ve been practicing a certain way in the state, I don’t think that we should just take a step back and be like, okay, now we’re going to detangle all of the different scopes of your practice and kind of — I feel like it’s a step down in what your scope is, and so you’re essentially giving the dentist or the powers that be the ability to pay you less for doing, you know, a component of the job rather than having it all-encompassing and keeping our wages high.
So, um — so that’s part of it. But, at the same time, I do believe in portability in a certain sense. So, like, my local anesthesia thing should transfer to Florida, um, but Georgia doesn’t have it the same way, so I still think I should still be able to do that in Georgia. And so that’s where —
Michelle Strange: — Yeah.
Andrew Johnston: — that’s where all the problems are really going to lie.
Michelle Strange: It’s a money grab. And I dare somebody to try to —
Andrew Johnston: — It’s a power grab too.
Michelle Strange: — convince me otherwise.
Andrew Johnston: I think it’s —
Michelle Strange: — It’s a power grab. It’s a money grab.
Andrew Johnston: Let’s keep people down.
Michelle Strange: I mean, for you to spend that much money — and let’s be honest. Like, denti — yes. Hygiene, you go — I mean, setting aside my frustrations with how we set our degree up for people — “It’s only two years, and you can make all this money and clock in and out.” — putting that aside, we do go for two years. We do make a decent salary. However, there’s a lot of other things that happen that don’t allow us — that still can force us to live paycheck to paycheck as practicing clinicians, right?
Andrew Johnston: Mm-hmm.
Michelle Strange: Especially if you’re the breadwinner and you have children. Like, it’s hard. And then to be, like, okay I want to move for a better life or whatever the reason, you can’t even afford to go get the license there.
Andrew Johnston: Mm-hmm.
Michelle Strange: It just — it baffles my mind. And I took SRTA, so I think I’m only in five states allowed.
Andrew Johnston: So was SRTA used to be NERB? Or is that even different?
Michelle Strange: No, that was SR — I think it’s still SRTA.
Andrew Johnston: So — Oh, like it’s with an “S”? S-R-T-A, right?
Michelle Strange: Yeah. S — it — yeah.
Andrew Johnston: So, yeah. You have SRTA; you have CDCA, which used to be NERB, which is like the North East Regional Board; and then you have WREB, which is the Western; and then you have Central or CRDTS.
So, yeah. Just so bizarre. Just the most bizarre thing, But, if you’re a dentist — I mean, I don’t think — I think in Florida it’s still a little bit weird with the dentist, but dentists can go anywhere because their scope of practice is almost the same anywhere. I’m — like, I think that’s interesting.
Michelle Strange: It’s so ridiculous. And, if you’ve followed us for the entire time, then you know that we — ultimately, we want to have some reciprocity, some ability to travel over the country. However, we also both agree that the education — and I don’t even understand how we’re — CRDTS. Or, no, SERT. Wait, what is it? No. CODA. How CODA calls one state in, like — let’s say a dental hygiene school in Texas and compares it to a dental hygiene school in Washington and they both get accredited under the — like, it baffles —
Andrew Johnston: — Yeah.
Michelle Strange: — my brain.
Andrew Johnston: Yeah.
Michelle Strange: But our education and our regula — and what happens in each one of the schools in our hygiene programs, those should be the same across the board without question, and they’re not.
Andrew Johnston: So, look. I — like, I — we love to complain. First of all, I passed all my tests. Like, that wasn’t —
Michelle Strange: — Congrats.
Andrew Johnston: I don’t know that that was necessarily a — I was a little bit concerned about the plastic thing because you couldn’t turn the head left or right or up and down, and you had to manually close the mandible to make the suction thing work, which I think was so bizarre. And there’s a lot of things. I’m pretty sure I gouged the crap out of that — the plastic teeth, but they still let me pass, so that’s good.
Michelle Strange: But again you passed based on how well you can pull calculus off of a tooth structure —
Andrew Johnston: — Right.
Michelle Strange: — which is the least little bit of things that we can do as dental professionals.
Andrew Johnston: Right.
Michelle Strange: And that, I think, is what — you know, even if you were — took an exam where it was like let’s talk about, you know, outcomes, you’ve been practicing dental hygiene long enough that you should be able to give me a treatment plan and explain to me a CAMBRA risk assessment and how would you create a good outcome for this patient.
Andrew Johnston: Mm-hmm.
Michelle Strange: But that’s not it. You are still judged on scaler in hand how can you screw up this tooth or not, which is…ugh.
Andrew Johnston: Well, I mean — and that — I guess that’s the thing, though. So — and not really sure that it’s said enough, but on all of these board exams, what they’re looking for is “minimal competency.” That’s literally the words they use to make sure that you’re the most basic of hygienists that can not — almost not even hurt somebody. Like it — you can at least one time in your career safely scale a quadrant or however many teeth you’re supposed to do without hurting somebody because otherwise if you did, you have these too many lacerations or whatever you get, you’d fail the exam. But, I mean, that — it’s minimal competency. That’s what the boards are there for.
And, surprisingly, they still catch about 2 to 3 percent of the population fail. Like, fail. Like, will never ever — doesn’t matter if they switch different board exams. They just fail. Like they still don’t get that part of it.
So I — I’m not really against the board exams. I think that — I think we need board exams still, but I think they —
Michelle Strange: — I am.
Andrew Johnston: — need to be expanded into what you’re talking about, Michelle, where it’s like here is part A. Let’s talk about C — B, C, D, E, F, G…Q.
Michelle Strange: Right. I think the — well, my take has always been that it is a very archaic system that does not create clinicians —
Andrew Johnston: — Right.
Michelle Strange: — that actually make change in patient habits and prevention. However, what I can, I guess, compromise or concede on is that our education system needs better calibration so that no matter what we are creating minimal, minimal competency within scaling technique —
Andrew Johnston: — Mm-hmm.
Michelle Strange: — without question, and that there’s none of this, like, well, they barely passed. They got a 75, and now —
Andrew Johnston: — C’s get degrees, buddy.
Michelle Strange: — we’ve leashed [sounds like] them on humans out in the world. Like that part I get.
Andrew Johnston: [Laughing].
Michelle Strange: Like we need more calibration.
Um, my favorite was “they don’t put grades on resumes.”
Andrew Johnston: Oh, yeah. That’s a good one.
Michelle Strange: [Laughing]. They don’t put grades even though I put mine all over mine.
Andrew Johnston: Do you really?
Michelle Strange: Take it all. Well, I mean, I put my, um, madam cu laude [sic] or what are them? What are them? What are them? I sound like, so —
Andrew Johnston: — What are them there degrees?
Michelle Strange: [Laughing].
Andrew Johnston: The — yeah. Summa cum laude —
Michelle Strange: — Take that out please [laughing].
Andrew Johnston: — Magna — the Magna Carta I think was a document —
Michelle Strange: — Which ones —
Andrew Johnston: — that you might be a part of.
Michelle Strange: I always forget which one is — [Laughing].
Andrew Johnston: You’re so old.
Michelle Strange: Which — I always forget which one’s highest.
Andrew Johnston: Um, I don’t know.
Michelle Strange: [Laughing].
Andrew Johnston: I feel like Summa might be.
But anyway. So — okay. So —
Michelle Strange: — Oh. No.
Andrew Johnston: No?
Michelle Strange: Yeah. Summa cum laude. So I put summa cum laude on mine because damn it I worked hard for that.
Andrew Johnston: Okay. She can’t say it, everyone, but she puts it on her resume, so that’s the only thing that matters [laughing].
Michelle Strange: Well, that’s the story of my life [laughing].
Andrew Johnston: Uh, so, if you’ve —
Michelle Strange: — Can’t say it, but —
Andrew Johnston: — If you made it this far into the podcast — so I definitely don’t want to be someone who just complains about something and doesn’t have a plan, and I’ve talked about this plan for years. This isn’t a brand — it was on my blog for a — like, a long time ago. Uh, there’s many ways to do it.
I am personally one that does like either regional or grouping of states and having that portability between certain states like Washington and Oregon. If you’ve taken the same exact courses — so a lot of the schools in Northern Oregon, and I think almost all the schools now in Oregon, teach restorative. They do all of these things. They should be able to get a Washington license as long as they sat for the same board exams. No problem.
Our EFDAs have to take a board exam. Our dental assistants that can place fillings have to take a board exam. I think that should be across the board too. All dental assistants, if you’re placing any sort of filling, restorative material, you should be taking a board exam for that, and — because it — and having an educational component, and then the board exam, and then be able to do it. Uh, none of this on-the-job training bull crap.
But anyways. So the whole point was — sorry, getting back to it. We should have, you know, different tiers. I love a tiered aspect. And, if you’re in the lower tier, you work really hard, you change your educational system to mirror that of the highest tier, and then, eventually, you can make the law changes necessary.
But I think there’s nothing wrong — if you’re in Texas, there’s nothing wrong with learning how to do local anesthesia even if you can’t actually do it when you get out of school. If you learn about it and then they pass the law, then you can retroactively go back and say, “Okay. Well, let me take a board exam real quick and then prove that I can do it.” Boom. Now you’re the same as all the other states that are doing local anesthesia, and then you can have reciprocity between all those states.
Anyway, there’s a whole plan in place. I have it. I don’t want to bore you guys to death with it, but it’s, um, it’s a thing.
Michelle Strange: So do it. Don’t talk about it. Be about it, Andrew.
Andrew Johnston: Well, look. I mean, make me —
Michelle Strange: — [Laughing].
Andrew Johnston: Never mind. I don’t want to say what I want to be.
Michelle Strange: I don’t —
Andrew Johnston: — You give me the power to do things —
Michelle Strange: — Listen —
Andrew Johnston: — and I will do things.
Michelle Strange: Y’all, I promise you when I win the lottery that I never play, I will buy the ADA, and I’m going to fix some things.
Andrew Johnston: You’re going to buy the ADA?
Michelle Strange: I’m just going to buy all — yes.
Andrew Johnston: It’s like a billion-dollar industry, and you’re like —
Michelle Strange: — I know.
Andrew Johnston: — “I’m just going to — ”
Michelle Strange: — I’m going to win a billion dollars.
Andrew Johnston: Okay.
Michelle Strange: Listen, it’s happened.
Andrew Johnston: I mean, one time I think.
Michelle Strange: And, if I win the lottery, I am going to buy them, and I’m going to run it.
Andrew Johnston: Okay.
Michelle Strange: And we’re going to really do prevention, and we’re going to fix the system.
Andrew Johnston: I would —
Michelle Strange: — It’s all money based.
Andrew Johnston: Can —
Michelle Strange: — It’s not power based. It’s not legislative changes. Money. [Cross talk].
Andrew Johnston: Can we start a DSO? And then I want to run the DSO, and we’ll do all the things that you want it to be.
Michelle Strange: The ADA is going to be a very costly, um, purchase, so I don’t know if I’m going to have enough money left over.
Andrew Johnston: I only need like —
Michelle Strange: — But —
Andrew Johnston: — $100 million or so? Okay.
Michelle Strange: That’s a lot. Yeah.
Andrew Johnston: Okay. We’ll talk about this another time.
Michelle Strange: That’s asking a lot. I can make you president of the ADA. How about that [laughing]?
Andrew Johnston: I’m sure all of our dental friends listening to this, like, hate that idea more than anything.
Michelle Strange: [Laughing]. Why? We have no beef with them.
Andrew Johnston: I don’t —
Michelle Strange: — We just want the hygiene —
Andrew Johnston: — I don’t know. I don’t know.
Michelle Strange: — I just want hygienists to have some ability to actually go and make a difference in the profession —
Andrew Johnston: — I know.
Michelle Strange: — in oral health, in access to care. Like, you — [grunting sound]. And the fact that I can’t go anywhere else. And I’m not spending $4,000. Like, y’all can — that just ain’t happening. I’ll get a volunteer RDH license somewhere.
Andrew Johnston: [Laughing]. I mean, look. Also, here’s another thing, though. I do want to say because I feel really bad about how ranty I’ve been on this, like, this particular — I’ve been kind of negative.
Michelle Strange: This deserves a rant, though.
Andrew Johnston: It doesn’t.
Michelle Strange: This is so beyond ridiculous —
Andrew Johnston: — I am —
Michelle Strange: — that it needs —
Andrew Johnston: — I am more —
Michelle Strange: — you need to vent about it.
Andrew Johnston: I am more centrist in the way I think.
Um, so the ADA — I’ve really come ar — actually, as much as they keep us down, they actually do quite a bit of good. I’ve been doing a lot of research into some of the things that they actually do, and it’s actually quite amazing.
Michelle Strange: That’s great. I’ll keep that going.
Andrew Johnston: I know. Yeah. I just don’t want to throw, like, what is it? Throw out the baby with the bath water or whatever? Like —
Michelle Strange: — No. It’s fine. I’m just going to run it, and —
Andrew Johnston: — Let’s keep the baby, throw out the bath water, and then —
Michelle Strange: — And then I’m going to hire people that are really going to help improve oral health mostly by giving hygienists [laughing] the roll, the access, the scope of practices that they need to go out and make some changes.
Andrew Johnston: Yeah. So, if you want to be a part of Michelle’s master plan, it’s michelle@ataleoftwohygienists.com. Let her know what position you are applying for.
Michelle Strange: And then send me your lottery tickets.
Andrew Johnston: Oh, yeah. That too. We’ll do — yeah.
Michelle Strange: [Laughing].
Andrew Johnston: Okay. I’m done ranting.
Michelle Strange: We’ve got to have the billion dollars.
Andrew Johnston: I think that’s enough of —
Michelle Strange: — Okay.
Andrew Johnston: It’s almost 30 minutes. People are done.
Michelle Strange: I know. This is a very long TIPisode, but it’s been a very interesting journey. And, I mean, every time that you called and told me about this, I was like, “You cannot be serious?” Like, this is a joke at this point.
Andrew Johnston: Yeah.
Michelle Strange: It’s horrible that you would have to do that and — wait. What was it that, like, one of them wouldn’t take a manikin?
Andrew Johnston: Yeah. Georgia won’t take a manikin exam. But, also —
Michelle Strange: — But they’re —
Andrew Johnston: — Florida won’t take a manikin exam except for they had the proclamation that said during this small little window, we’ll actually accept it, which was supposed to end —
Michelle Strange: — So what —
Andrew Johnston: — in Mar — end of March.
Michelle Strange: So what happens when you graduate right now from a state that has a manikin and it — can you go to Georgia with any other li — or under CRDTS?
Andrew Johnston: No. You have to do —
Michelle Strange: — It’s CRDTS, right?
Andrew Johnston: Wait. Yeah, with CRDTS. You have to do a live patient with CRDTS. But, if you do the manikin —
Michelle Strange: — So, currently —
Andrew Johnston: — with CRDTS or manikin with CDCA for Florida, as long — so, as long as you took that exam during that same time period, the board will honor that. But, if you took it after the time period, they’re not going to honor it anymore.
Michelle Strange: So, currently if you are graduating with and doing a CRDTS exam on a manikin, you could move to Georgia?
Andrew Johnston: Um-um. Georgia’s not —
Michelle Strange: — No.
Andrew Johnston: No manikins whatsoever in Georgia ever. No — not even a time period.
Michelle Strange: Like, again, make that make sense. You are gradua — like, so my students at my — at the college that I teach at occasionally are doing manikin CRDTS exams.
Andrew Johnston: Yeah. They wouldn’t have reciprocity in Georgia.
Michelle Strange: Georgia, you give me a headache day in and day out. I just need you to do better, okay? Okay?
Andrew Johnston: But, also, Georgia, let’s be friends because I want to get my license [laughing], so don’t get so pissy at the words so that I can still get my license.
Michelle Strange: But you would be able to get, like — I don’t know.
Andrew Johnston: I have to sit for another board exam. Yeah. There’s just too many things.
Let me just pay some money, Georgia. Or just grandfather me in. Like, I’m a good guy, everyone. Like, I promise I’ll not hurt anybody. I’ll only do good things.
Michelle Strange: [Laughing]. You do all the CEs!
Andrew Johnston: Oh, my gosh. Yes.
Michelle Strange: So many CEs.
All right, well. Hopefully — well, congrats on passing the most ridiculous, dumb exam —
Andrew Johnston: — Thank you. Thank you.
Michelle Strange: — that you just had to do.
Andrew Johnston: Thank you.
Michelle Strange: Waste of money. We could have gone somewhere spectacular.
Andrew Johnston: Mm-hmm. Yep. True.
Michelle Strange: Um, and good luck.
Andrew Johnston: Just taking all the opportunities out of my kid’s lives, but you know, no big deal.
Michelle Strange: Yeah. It’s fine. I mean, they won’t go to college. It’s fine.
Andrew Johnston: No. That’s, yeah, food out of their mouth. They’re starving right now because we can’t afford it, but you know, whatever.
Michelle Strange: It’s fine.
Andrew Johnston: It’s fine.
Michelle Strange: It’s for th — whoever needs the money. They need to be bigger.
Andrew Johnston: Yeah. Yeah.
Michelle Strange: They need more money.
Andrew Johnston: Yeah. I agree.
Michelle Strange: Screw your kids.
All right. Well, sorry that it was so long, but I hope that, um — well, I honestly, if you guys have gone through any of these or have had this experience, let us know. Like, we want to hear what your experience is, and I think that just calling attention to how absurd it all is is very important. And I don’t think we’re going to fix it by ranting, but definitely telling the world how stupid it is is a good first step.
Andrew Johnston: Absolutely.
And, also, put me in power so I can create the change. That’d be great. Thanks, guys.
Michelle Strange: And buy the ADA for me. Mkay.
Well, we hope you guys have a great week. And, if you haven’t already, hit that subscribe button.
Andrew Johnston: Toodles.
Michelle Strange: [Laughing].
We hope you enjoyed this week’s TIPisode. Be sure to reach out to our guest experts and let them know how helpful their tips were. Follow A Tale of Two Hygienists on Facebook, Instagram, and head over to ataleoftwohygienists.com and subscribe to our newsletter. You can also email us at ataleoftwohygienists@gmail.com, and keep listening for more awesome content from your unofficial dental hygiene podcast.
