What is a Certified Dental Assistant?

Earn a fulfilling career as a Certified Dental Assistant! Certified Dental Assistants are educated, licensed and regulated members of an integrated dental healthcare team that provides oral care services to patients. The practice of dental assisting involves collaboration with patients and other healthcare professionals to achieve and maintain optimal oral health and overall health and well-being.

As a Certified Dental Assistant, you will work alongside and assist a Dentist. Specific duties include:

• Preparing and maintaining dental instruments and equipment
• Maintaining appropriate infection control
• Assisting the dentist
• Preparing dental materials such as dental composites, amalgams and cements
• Providing patient education and comfort
• Performing patient care procedures such as taking health histories; assisting in patient assessment; exposing of dental images; patient charting; treatment planning; polishing teeth and delivering preventative fluoride applications.
• Carrying out office administration services, including management of dental records

To be successful as a dental assistant student and professional, the student requires:

• a caring nature and interest in the well-being of others
• excellent interpersonal skills
• good time management skills
• good eyesight, hearing, and hand-eye coordination. It is strongly recommended that students have an eye examination and obtain corrective eyewear if needed.
• ability to accurately follow verbal and written directions
• ability to manage a fast-paced, demanding, and stressful work environment
• computer literacy especially experience with word processing and internet
• the same standard of oral health that they encourage in their patients

Careers

Our graduates are career-ready and are highly employable. Certified dental assistants are employed in a variety of practice settings including:

• Dental offices
• Specialty practices such as children's specialist, orthodontics, or oral surgery
• Hospital dental clinics
• BC Cancer Agency
• Community health clinics and public health facilities
• Residential care facilities for seniors and the disabled

Employment opportunities also exist in education, research, sales and marketing of dental products, and dental insurance company administration.

For more information about the Certified Dental Assisting profession, please visit Canadian Dental Assistants Association and CDA Alliance.

Accreditation

The Dental Assistant program is accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation of Canada. When you graduate, you’re eligible to write Canadian and American national certification exams.

What you will learn

This is a 10 month, hands-on program with opportunities to work with a range of equipment and techniques.

CNC Dental Assisting program offers small class sizes and a 1:8 ratio of faculty to students in the clinical setting. Our clinic is equipped with 20 dental operatories and 4 radiography rooms with computerized dental stations and digital radiography and record keeping abilities. Students are activity involved in our dental clinic providing patient-centered oral healthcare care services.

Our dental assisting curriculum also includes community-based student activities. For example, CNC Dental Studies works collaboratively with the Northern Health Authority to deliver a Seal in a Smile program to elementary school aged children annually. 

Top 5 reasons to enroll at CNC

• Career- ready, highly employable graduates
• Educated, caring and experienced faculty
• Small class sizes with collaborative education
• Large clinic with 20 computerized/digital units
• Affordable cost of living

Is this program right for me? Answer this questionnaire to confirm the program is right for you. 

• Pre-Program Questionnaire
• Dentistry Services 

Entry Requirements

• Proof of high school graduation or equivalent.
• The following courses, each with a letter grade of "C+" or higher:
• Anatomy & Physiology 12, or BIO 050, or equivalent
• English Studies 12, or English First Peoples 12, or ENGL 050, or ENGL 051, or equivalent

Prior to the start of the program, you must provide the following completed documents supplied in the program information package:

• Proof of current immunization status as outlined by the BC Centre for Disease Control and as outlined in the BC Practice Education Guidelines BC Immunization. See Practice Education Guidelines.
• Dental examination within the last 9 months
• Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), Level C, or Basic Life Support (BLS). CPR online course must include face-to-face practice components. 
• Criminal Record Check (RCMP criminal record checks are not accepted)

Students must complete a provincial Schedule B criminal record search because there is a practicum component involving work with vulnerable people. A search which identifies relevant criminal convictions may prevent students from registering for practicum. To graduate from the Dental Assisting program, each practicum must be successfully completed. Note 1: All costs associated with certifications, courses and/or documentation requirements are the student’s responsibility. Note 2: May be required to travel for practicum placements.

Note 1: All costs associated with certifications, courses and/or documentation requirements are the student’s responsibility.

Note 2: May be required to travel for practicum placements.

Need help meeting these requirements? Check out our Academic Upgrading options.

Limited admission

If there is room in the program, you will be accepted once you have met all the admission requirements. This is called “first qualified, first accepted.” If you qualify after the program is full, you will be put on a wait list.

Self-identified Canadian Aboriginal applicants meeting the admission requirements will be given priority for 20% of seats in the program until the institutionally recognized release date.

Invest in your future

The estimated cost for this program is $7202.07. 

• Semester 1: $3217.25
• Semester 2: $2793.46
• Intersession: $1191.36

Check the fee schedule for more details

Supplies for this program can be purchased from the bookstore and through the program.

Locations & Dates

CNC programs have varying lengths and start dates to meet your needs, and are offered across multiple campuses where possible. Don’t see the campus you’re looking for? Check back with us soon as this page is updated throughout the school year.