Jade Lam, dental hygienist and midwife.
Age: 34.
Career path: When I left school I knew I wanted to nurse, but I eventually decided on dental work because I'm basically lazy and the shift work in regular nursing put me off! I knew that if I was a dental nurse, I would work regular hours and studying would take only one year as opposed to the three it takes to become a nurse. I trained at the Prince Philip Dental Hospital and graduated as a dental surgery assistant 10 years ago. I worked at the hospital as a dental assistant and nurse for a couple of years. But it became very boring so I did the one-year dental hygienist course at the hospital and then started in private practice as a hygienist. I now work for three dental clinics, Monday to Saturday.
Jade's day: I get my child ready for school and then by 9 am I start at one of the three clinics at which I work.
I usually have a full day of appointments, mostly to do scaling and polishing, but sometimes I do special whitening treatments and X-rays, if the dentist asks me. A scale and polish takes about an hour and once I start I need to concentrate quite hard because if I slip or am careless with some of the instruments I use, I could hurt the patient.
Some patients are okay, but others are impatient and difficult. I try to make people feel at ease when I start and I tell them that nothing will hurt, especially if I can see they are nervous. Most people think a polish only takes five minutes and they start getting restless, but it really does take the best part of an hour if it is done properly. Others complain about various procedures: the baking soda, for example, is a part of the cleaning that a lot of people don't like. Then there are other patients who fall asleep and their mouth keeps closing. It is challenging to get a patient's teeth looking clean and decent and I do derive some satisfaction from this, although it is a fiddly and lengthy job.