Dental Hygiene and Dental Nursing at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto

Dental hygienists and dental nurses are primary health care workers who play an invaluable role in promoting oral health. These professions employ large numbers of Canadians to meet national needs: with over 30,000 current members, dental hygiene is the sixth largest regulated health profession in Canada (CDHA 2021). Despite their size and impact, however, the dental hygiene and dental nursing professions have remained hidden in the public eye, and their stories are largely untold. These omissions are in part due to the gendered division of labour within the history of dentistry and ensuing gender bias. Whereas dentistry was a historically male-dominated field (Adams 72), hygienists and nurses were, until very recently, exclusively women (Kassirer 4). As women working in the health sciences, dental hygienists’ and dental nurses’ contributions to the field and to the practice of healthcare have often gone ignored in scholarship and professional discourse. This project aims to address this gap in medical history. 

Dental hygienists and dental nurses are primary health care professionals. Many work embedded within a dentist’s office, although some also practice independently. Dental hygienists and nurses have a long legacy of community service. From the start of the profession, dental hygienists and nurses have been tasked with providing oral health education to the community and serving populations who otherwise would not have access to oral care. Beyond providing healthcare services, dental hygienists and nurses are also researchers contributing to oral health scholarship and advocates organising for public health at federal and regional levels. 

This exhibit presents a history of the University of Toronto’s Dental Nursing (1919-1961) and Dental Hygiene (1951-1977) programs. This institutional focus is because many of the leading lights within dental hygiene and dental nursing were graduates of the University of Toronto's programs. As well, these programs were pioneering developments in oral health education, as they were the first degrees of their kind in Canada. The University of Toronto introduced the first dental nursing program in Canada in 1919 (Kassirer 4), and later launched the first dental hygienist program in Canada in 1951 (Kassirer 5). 

The exhibit follows a chronological timeline of major milestones in dental nursing and dental hygiene. For each milestone, the exhibit also presents the biography of one of the women who made significant contributions to the profession at that time.

 

Credits

Maria Zych, Helen He, Oriane Edwards, Dentistry Library