Proprietary Programs

I keep wanting to post and have a lot to comment on but have been sooo busy.  However, I feel that my post today must be on proprietary dental hygiene programs.  Why do I hate them with such vehemence?  I guess that it begins with the hegemonic hold that the ADA has over dental hygiene.  We do not regulate ourselves and so we must suffer with whatever the ADA cooks up.  This time they have decided that any Joe Blow dentist can open his/her own dental hygiene program anywhere at anytime.  This is disgusting, a hygienist can't open their own program, but a dentist, without any background in education can open a program and pack it with students (after all, it is all about making money).  These new business owners do not have any obligation to the dental hygiene profession.  My concerns of course are centered on quality clinicians, contributing professionals and the fact that graduating grossly huge numbers of dental hygienists does impact the workforce.

At a time when we are fighting for dental hygienists to gain more responsibility and increase the education level for entry into the profession, these strip front mall institutions serve to enforce a lower level of education and respect for the profession.  Our jobs and education are now analogous to nail technicians and beauticians who get their degree or certificate at a strip mall.  The existence of proprietary programs undermines and invalidates the degrees that we have worked so hard to get in the past and those that will be awarded in the future.