Greater Philadelphia Dental Hygiene Study Club

Einstein Center One, Suite 211-212
9880 Bustleton Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19115
Phone: 215-677-8686
Fax: 215-677-7212

The Greater Philadelphia Dental Hygiene Study Club (GPDHSC) was established to help advance the professional careers of dental hygienists and dental assistants. Regrettably, Maggie Rutherford, our former coordinator, has pursued other career options and is no longer affiliated with the GPDHSC. We will be sure to keep former members and attendees of GPDHSC events informed of future courses and seminars. Information for 2021 will follow at a later date along with details of a new contact person.

Due to the pandemic, all future courses and seminars have, unfortunately, been cancelled. Information for 2020-2021 will follow at a later date. The one-day course that had been scheduled for Friday, October 16th has also been CANCELLED.

Latest Information about CE Requirements:

From PDHAonline.org– Changes In State Board of Dentistry CE Requirements:
All licensees in PA are required to take a 2 CEU Child Abuse course for every re-licensure period.

New applicants or new hygiene school graduates must take a 3 credit course. Go to
www.reportabusepa.pitt.edu for a free online course that is approved by the PA State Board of
Dentistry.

Local Anesthesia – All RDHs who are certified in local anesthesia are required to take 3 CE
hours every renewal period. These credits must be in local anesthesia or pharmacology.
There are no specific requirements for your local anesthesia and public health CE credits in
regards to taking these classes as online modules. The only requirement from the State Board
of Dentistry is that half of your overall credits must be taken in person.

Public Health Dental Hygiene Practitioners – The 5 credit hours needed for this permit should be in subjects related to public health. If you have a question about a specific course, you must contact the State Board of Dentistry with the course outline and topic information to see if it qualifies as a public health course.

GO TO THE SOURCE: Email: st-dentistry@state.pa.us and request a copy of the Title 49: Professional and Vocational Standards, Chapter 33: State Board of Dentistry – or go online to http://www.pacode.com/secure/data/049/chapter33/chap33toc.html and view the regulations online.

The Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Radiation Protection, is now requiring all radiographers to take 2 contact hours (4 CEUs) in radiation safety. (Since medical and dental CEUs are evaluated differently, for you it means 2 credits with a live speaker; the course can be didactic or may involve clinical. Hands-on is NOT a requirement.) The DEP will be verifying these hours when the radiation check is done on office x-ray equipment (varies for every office, occurs once every four years). The owner of the equipment is liable to the DEP for ALL persons using radiation equipment. This requirement is NOT required by the State Board of Dentistry and cannot affect your professional license, however, the content may be used toward your 20 CEUs.

Need a copy of a continuing education certificate? All the CE records are kept at the state office in Mechanicsburg. When you take courses that are approved by the PA Academy of Dental Hygiene Studies, your name & license number are placed into the computer system. If you need a transcript of all courses that you took that were approved by the Academy, the fee for PDHA members is $10.00, and $25.00 for non-members of the PDHA. Please contact PDHA at 717-766-0334 or email pdha@verizon.net.

Supervision laws have changed (effective 01/2010) – Registered dental hygienists are now able to perform services within their scope of practice without their employer in the office as long as the patient has been examined within the last year. The dentist also needs to authorize each specific treatment after reviewing the patient’s history (with input from the RDH) and the patient needs to be healthy or have only mild systemic disease. This means that no patients with moderate or severe disease may be seen by a RDH without the dentist in the office. The State Board of Dentistry is no longer using ASA classifications for determining supervision guidelines.