At some point in your career, you'll collaborate with an oral health therapist. If you haven’t already, it’s important to understand what they do, how they think, and the value they bring to a team.

Welcome to Fresh-Out Fridays, where we sit down with early-career dental professionals to discuss the real-life experiences that academic study doesn’t fully prepare you for.

In this episode, we speak with Jayden Hall, an Oral Health Therapist (OHT) who is four years into his career.

Jayden provides an honest look at life as an OHT—covering everything from a typical day’s activities to how he discovered his clinical niche, and how he built trust with patients who were initially uncertain about him.

He explains the collaboration between OHTs and dentists, shares insights on the CPD landscape from an OHT’s perspective, discusses the rewarding moments in the job, and emphasises the importance of finding mentorship—even informally—during those crucial early years.

This episode is a valuable resource for any early-career dentist who wants to understand their future colleagues better, enhance team dynamics, improve patient care, and how to foster effective collaboration that benefits everyone—including patients.

So grab your coffee, settle in, and let's brush up on what it takes to find your place in the team.

If you want to stay up to date with the latest developments in dentistry, check out our upcoming CPD courses at adacpd.au.