Southern California | California CareForce

Volunteer Description:

CE Credits Available! The Dental Section is staffed with over 100 volunteer dental professionals and utilizes oral surgeons, general dentists, dental hygienists, dental assistants, and other dental professionals to serve hundreds of patients in need each clinic day. This section includes up to 68 dental chairs divided into three main sections: Hygiene, Restorative, and Surgery.

All patients are initially screened in Medical Triage, where a medical history, vital signs, blood glucose, current medications, and allergies are documented on their dental form. From Medical Triage, most patients are escorted (by a general volunteer) to a Dental X-ray, receiving a panorex, bilateral bitewings, and anterior periapical films. A few patients may request hygiene only and skip radiographs. Patients are then escorted to Dental Triage, where a preliminary treatment plan is documented on their dental form. From Dental Triage, the patient is escorted to Oral Surgery, Restorative, or Hygiene, where each practitioner determines a final treatment plan.

The Dental Section is equipped with all the appropriate PPE and armamentarium you would typically have in private practice. CareForce supplies disposable gloves, masks, face shields and gowns. Please feel free to bring your disposable items if you require anything specific.

Hygiene information:

As a dental hygiene volunteer at CCF, you will see a wide variety of patients with different periodontal needs. As a dental hygiene professional, you can determine what treatments your patients will need that day. We recommend limiting treatment times to under 40 minutes per patient due to the high volume of patients needing treatment at these clinics. For patients requiring more extensive scaling and root planning procedures, we recommend doing what you can with the given time and referring those patients to local clinics or dental hygiene schools for further treatment.

CCF provides all of its dental hygiene volunteers with access to top-of-the-line equipment to provide the best care possible to our patients. Each hygienist has their section to work from, which you can customize and set up however you would like to make things comfortable for you. The provider chairs at the clinic are plastic folding chairs and, therefore, cannot be lowered or raised, so some hygienists prefer to bring their chairs to use from their private practice, or they prefer to stand. However, the patient chair CAN be raised or lowered for your comfort.

Hygienists will find an outstanding and comprehensive assortment of high-quality instruments and supplies at a well-organized, labeled buffet table. This includes Hu-Friedy Swerve Ultrasonic units and tips, Hu-Friedy hand instruments, and additional curettes and graceys if needed—a variety of local anesthetic and cetacaine liquid syringes. A well-organized “buffet” table is stocked with fluoride varnish, GreenLeaf and other suction devices, gauze, cotton rolls, polishing paste, prophy cups, etc. We ensure our instruments are in good condition and that we have an appropriate quantity, so you will never have to go without an instrument you may need. In addition, you will have access to local/topical anesthetics to use as needed.

CE credit information: We proudly offer our volunteer dental professionals three CE credits in Emergency Preparedness, free of charge. These credits are provided through the California Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (CALAOMS).

To receive the CE credits, you must volunteer at least one full day (8+ hours) at a California CareForce clinic and complete and submit the required form within 30 days of volunteering. You will receive a certificate verifying your CE credits one of two ways: 1) in person at the clinic or 2) post-clinic via mail. A record of your CE credits will also be kept at the CALAOMS office in case they need to be verified directly.