At Tufts, my sister's friends in dental school were able to take the State's qualifying exams to be dental hygenist. I think that at the end of their third year or something like that they were quailifed to take the exam. Anyhow, many of her friends did this and worked part-time during their 4th year and especially on the weekends. Dental Hygenist make very good money, and her friends were able to earn a considerable amount of money during the 4th year. I am not sure how different schools have different policies regarding this. But it seems very encouraging if dental students can do this during their fourth year, since there is less of a demand in school since most spend time in clinics and not so much time studying for written exams and such compared to 1st and 2nd year, or so I was told. Earning extra money also helps a great deal during 4th year, especially for those of us at private schools, since taking the board exams and such cost money, moving back home or moving somewhere else will cost money, paying for people to be patients, etc, and just simply having some money to live on when you owe around 200,000 bucks at the end of your school career, 🙂
So perhaps maybe we can start asking around to see which school allows 3rd and 4th year dental students to work as dental hygenist on the side???