The new professional profile of the Dental Practice Nurse between novel points and questionable ones

Abstract

OBJECTIVES The aim of this paper is to analyze a very recent Prime Ministerial Decree (DPCM), issued on March 9, 2022 – which amends and replaces a previous decree establishing the new professional position of Dental Practice Nurse (ASO) – in order to better recognize and understand its innovative impact both on the daily practice of dentistry and on the professional figure of the ASO. MATERIALS AND METHODS The new Decree was compared with the previous one (DPCM of Feb. 9, 2018), so as to highlight their respective strengths and the remaining weaknesses. RESULTS The main motivating force behind both Decrees was the political will to overcome improvisations and recognize the professionalism of a professional who has worked alongside us all along and who supports us in a world that sees fast changes regarding technologies, patients’ wishes and definite potentialities. With the 2018 Decree the professional profile of the ASO is outlined, if with some uncertainty. With the second one (2022) an attempt is made to get over the remaining problems, especially with reference to the training and the recognition of the qualifications acquired on the workplace and through experience. The professionalism and competence needed to protect the health of patients and professionals depend on the skills of the ASO as well. The professional profile of the ASO is complex, and yet it is now mapped out. ASOs are required to have multiple and diverse skills. Thus there is now a need for regions and autonomous provinces to quickly take up the issue and legislate accordingly. CONCLUSIONS The official recognition of the ASO as a professional figure – long overdue – functions to protect a category of workers that has grown responsibly with the dental world. The ASO has acquired skills that are essential to a proper and modern management of the technical-clinical and administrative-secretarial aspects proper to dental practice. Competence and professionalism are the requirements that the political, technical and clinical worlds demand in the context of a rapidly evolving dentistry practice. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE The identification of the professional profile of the ASO through two successive Prime Ministerial Decrees four years apart, under-scores the role and importance of this professional figure in the context of clinical dental practice. The need for awareness and expertise accelerated the process. Hopefully, all this will be a stimulus for further professional growth in step with modern dentistry.