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137
Illness also affected the dental surgery assistant staff in that
one full time dental surgery assistant has been away for a considerable
period. Here again resignations occurred, two
attributable to impending motherhood and a third through change
of employment. Fortunately, replacement of staff was achieved
reasonably promptly, but this, and the internal movement of staff
to cover temporary vacancies did impose some strain on the service.
A one day in-service training course was held in February for
dental auxiliaries. This was done on behalf of the Inner London
Education Authority at the Eileen Lecky Treatment Centre, for
those auxiliaries working for the Authority. Invitations were
extended to auxiliaries working in Outer London Boroughs.
Twenty-six attended for the following programme:-
"Local Anaesthetics and their reactions".
"Extraction of deciduous teeth".
"Is our dietary advice too sloppy?" and
"Dental health education; does it need re-assessment?"
The latter two subjects were combined for an afternoon seminar,
which had to be curtailed when time ran out on a very successful
day.
The first I.L.E.A. in-service training course for Dental Officers
was held during the year and Miss A.Stockel was fortunate in
obtaining a place on it. Mr.A.D.Valentine is attending the
Diploma in Dental Public Health course run by the Royal College
of Surgeons. This occupies one academic year of intensive study.
In the health education field, Miss E.Mutter our Dental
Auxiliary, has steadily expanded her work during the year. In
conjunction with the I.L.E.A. Health Educators, the I.L.E.A. puppet
show presented the evils of Jimmy Germ to primary school
children during a six weeks tour of the Borough. It proved to be
very popular with both children and staff. Its reception paved
the way for "brush-ins" in the primary schools. These are a
group activity during which some 10 to 12 children stain their
teeth to see how much debris there is on them. They are then
asked to remove the stain by using a tooth brush, which teaches
the children just how difficult and time consuming it is to clean
teeth properly. During this procedure faulty brushing habits are
corrected and the reasons and times for cleaning teeth are
discussed.