The Dental Assisting program at East Ohio College celebrated National Dental Assistants Recognition Week, held the first week in March.
According to an online article, Dental Assistants Recognition Week on NationalToday.com, the dental assisting profession can be traced back as far as 7000 B.C. when the history of dentistry began. Archaeological evidence revealed that dentistry was a profession practiced during the Stone Age in the Indus Valley. By the 19th century, dentistry was a fully established profession, with the founding of the first dental school in 1840 and the formation of the American Dental Association in 1859. In 1885, Dr. Edmund Kells, a New Orleans dentist, pioneered the dental assistant profession by allowing his wife to assist him in his practice. In 1917, the first dental assistant society was founded in Nebraska. After the first national convention of dental assistants in 1924, the American Dental Assistants Association (ADAA) was founded in 1925. Dental Assistants Recognition Week was later created by the ADAA to recognize the contributions of dental assistants to the dental profession and public dental health.
