Oral Health Therapist or Dental Therapist
What the work is
Assesses, diagnoses, treats, manages and prevents oral health disease, and promotes positive oral health among individuals and the community.
Would you enjoy the work?
These are the main tasks in the official description. Mark how each one sounds to you.
- Assesses, diagnoses, treats, manages and prevents oral health disease for patients of all ages
- Provides preventive dental care including oral hygiene instruction, fluoride treatments and sealant application
- Performs non-surgical treatment of gum diseases
- Supports orthodontic procedures
- Performs routine dental procedures such as cleaning and polishing teeth
- Provides education and information to promote positive oral health
- Takes dental radiographs (X-rays) and interprets the results
- Provides restorative dental care including fillings and children's crowns
- Collaborates with other dental practitioners to ensure optimal patient care
Try it
A simulation and a case study from this kind of work, set in a school dental clinic in a van, visiting small primary and secondary schools. They are fictional.
The kind of days you could have
Good days
- A child who was terrified of the chair laughs and asks to come back
- A student tells their friends how to look after their teeth, using your words
- Spotting a small problem early so it never turns into a big one
Hard days
- A day of nervous children, some of whom will not open their mouths at all
- A parent who thinks a problem is not serious when you know it is
- Working close, bent over, for hours, with the van's air conditioning on its last legs
Written by Career Calling as a general guide. Real roles vary by employer and place.
Work a mission
Step into a simulated workplace in this field, with a brief from your manager.
Description and tasks: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, 2024, Version 1.0 (opens another site), occupation 269133, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The skill guide above is our plain English summary.