Dental Hygiene Continuing Education

by Bruce Bronoske, Jr.

Dental hygienists must complete 15 hours of continuing education (CE) as a part of their license renewal requirements.  What you may not know is that there are several ways to earn those CEs.  Did you know that a dental hygienist may earn up to 10 CEs for documented volunteer hours that meet the requirements listed in the dental hygiene rules?  They can also earn up to five hours for courses relating to practice organization and management, medical/dental insurance, or even a course relating to retirement.

One of the most common questions I get is “What is the difference between self-study and distance learning?”  Self-study courses are limited to five CEs per renewal period, while all 15 CEs can be taken by distance learning.  The short answer is that distance learning courses require some sort of assessment, quiz, or test at the end of the course.  Courses taken online, by webinar, or even by audio/video broadcasting are considered distance learning as long as there is a quiz at the end.  Self-study CEs are usually earned by studying books, journals, publications, or other research that does not have a test on course information.  To count the self-study hours, the dental hygienist must provide some additional information: the date the self-study was completed, a short bibliography describing where the information was found, a summary of the information learned, and the number of CEs the course is worth.