Continuing Education for Utah Dentists

This week is the Utah Dental Association’s annual meeting. Most dentists and their teams will attend this 2 day event at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City. I bring this up because a common question we get is how much CE or continuing education does a dentist need to take. In Utah, the requirement for continuing education is 30 hours every 2 years for both dentists and hygienists.

Those hours represent time sitting in a class, participating in a hands-on course, or reading an article. To verify that an article was read a test must be taken after reading. A dentist can be audited for their CE and must show proof of the classes attended or articles read.

If a dentist only attends the Utah Dental Convention each year, they can get 24 of those 30 hours. So it’s not too difficult a task to complete the requirement. In our dental practice we get much more than the required continuing education and my guess would be most other dentists do as well.

Recently I have taken classes teaching about the latest bone grafting techniques for dental implants. I also attended the national dental meeting in Las Vegas.

At these dental meetings they also have social activities, and an exhibit hall where many manufacturers demonstrate their products. Toothbrush manufacturers like Crest, Colgate, and Oral-B are usually well represented and it’s neat to collect samples of all the latest brushes and pastes.

So if you wonder where all the dentists are this week in Salt Lake City, look downtown. We’re trying to learn a few things to help take even better care of your teeth and mouth.