Bachelor of Arts in Dental Hygiene (BA)

Bachelor of Arts in Dental Hygiene (BA) in three years

Join the university-trained elite of dentistry with a Bachelor of Arts in Dental Hygiene!

Studying the Bachelor of Arts in Dental Hygiene (BA) at DPU's department of Medicine/Dentistry, alongside students in the diploma programme in dentistry for award of the Dr. med. dent. degree, is an excellent opportunity to learn from top professors and senior and assistant dentists with a high level of recognition. The academic programme for the Bachelor of Arts in Dental Hygiene (BA) offers you an excellent opportunity to help shape a modern, success-oriented state-of-the-art practice and make yourself indispensable as an academic to your dentist and patients.

Your advantages of studying at DPU:

• You will acquire an undergraduate Bachelor's degree in Dental Hygiene (BA) that is accredited and recognised throughout Europe. The respective country-specific legal regulations apply to exercising the profession.

• You will study in a familiar atmosphere with prospective dentists at DPU and you'll be able to integrate yourself into a high-class network of the European, and even global, dental elite.

• DPU has all the facilities for internships (e.g. Bioscience Teaching Pavilion, 74 Phantom workstations etc.).
   
• Dental hygienists trained at DPU can receive excellent employment and work offers from the approximately 670 dentistry students and 539 graduates of dentisry, most of whom are children of dentists themselves. The more than 1,100 dentists enrolled part-time in the postgraduate Master of Science (MSc) specialisation programmes in the field of dentistry are increasingly interested in dental hygienists with a bachelor's degree in Dental Hygiene, in their efforts to provide preventive dentistry, as are the more than 5,000 postgraduates who run leading dental practices around the world. If you're not looking for an employment contract, but rather freelance work in practices, DPU can put you in contact with interested practices that are looking for dental hygiene graduates from our Bachelor of Arts in Dental Hygiene programme.

Qualification profile

With their knowledge and practical professional training, dental hygienists contribute to maintaining the health of teeth and the surrounding bone and soft tissue. Their task is primary, secondary and tertiary prevention in the context of oral medicine. In doing so, they make an important contribution to preventive medicine.

Precisely because of the increasing demand for preventive dentistry-oriented practices and new fields of treatment in periodontics, implantology, aesthetic-reconstructive care and geriatric dentistry, as well as an increased awareness of prevention, patients are increasingly demanding university-qualified prophylaxis staff based on European educational standards, e.g. Bachelor of Arts in Dental Hygiene (BA).

Forecasts state that the increasing incidence of periodontitis, peri-implantitis and other oral diseases cannot be managed medically or financially in all industrialised countries without dental hygienists, who work largely independently as part of the delegation of responsibility by the dentist. This training, which opens up favourable income opportunities for dentists and dental hygienists, has been successfully established in many countries for years, for example in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and the USA.

Dental hygienists work in dental practices, dental clinics, public healthcare institutions, education, research and industry. They independently perform delegable tasks on the patient under the medical and legal responsibility of the delegating practice owner, clinic manager or other dental supervisors. They bring a significant increase in revenue to the practice; based on the experience of innovative practice owners, this can mean annual additional revenue of around 100-150,000 euros per dental hygienist. But they can also earn a considerable income based on practice performance. A committed dental hygienist understands how to bind patients to the practice through prevention and win them over to innovative services of modern dentistry, making it easier for the dentist to spend more time on complicated tasks in patient treatment.

Training to become a dental hygienist takes place in a three-year bachelor's programme. The Bachelor of Arts in Dental Hygiene (BA) comprises 180 ECTS.

Upon successfully completing the programme, graduates are qualified to carry out the tasks of a dental hygienist with a bachelor's degree in Dental Hygiene (BA) within the framework of the respective national regulations. In addition to working in dental practices or other clinical dentistry institutions, such as university dental clinics, their training allows them to work in many other areas, e.g. teaching, research, administration, public healthcare or industry, in accordance with the respective legal standards in individual countries.