Prevention & education to improve patient outcomes | Janhvi Vyas, BSDH, RDH
Janhvi’s early experience as a pediatric dental patient led her to pursue a career in dentistry and beyond. Today she’s looking toward what impacts health & prevention on a global scale and seeking broader opportunity, collaboration, & connection.
Janhvi Vyas has been a dental hygienist for two years. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 2022 and faced the challenges of being in hygiene school during a pandemic. She is currently working on completing her master’s in public health and is still practicing clinically as she works on accomplishing this goal.
She was born and raised in India and came to America when she was ten years old. Prior to coming to America she did not have any experience going to a dental office. She emphasizes that in India visiting the dentist is not part of your normal health routine except when one is in pain. When she did finally visit an office, it was because she was in pain and needed a root canal. When she learned about how to prevent dental diseases, she knew that she wanted to have a role in helping others to prevent dental health issues and saw being a dental hygienist as a great way to help others. She decided to get her master’s in public health out of her desire to learn more about health systems, global health disparities to oral health, and access to healthcare for different populations. She has learned that social determinants of health impacts our overall healthcare.
She was motivated to become a member of RDH Connect because of her interests in the diverse careers that included nonclinical opportunities that she saw some members are involved in. She also likes the ability of being able to connect with other colleagues.
She is very passionate about making sure she accesses all patients for oral cancer and takes their blood pressure. She has seen oral cancer in her patients and referred them to an Oral Surgeon for further assessments. Early detection is key to the success of more positive patient outcomes. She has multiple patients that she has taken blood pressure readings on that the office had to refer to the emergency department due to the risk of treatment. Educating her patients about their systemic health is very important to her to educate them about their overall health.
She loves when she has patients state that they only want her as their hygienist. Her favorite dental hygiene instrument is a Nevi as well as an 11/12 explorer to detect calculus. She loves connecting with her colleagues and recently attended the American Dental Education conference in New Orleans. She enjoyed connecting with colleagues in academia and learned about what is currently being done to improve and enhance dental hygiene careers. She enjoyed learning about the integration of dental and medicine. Currently, Cleveland Hospital is integrating a cross collaboration between healthcare providers, between dentistry and medicine, to find ways to help their patients together. She looks forward to seeing how this model of care will help improve access to care for diverse populations and increase opportunities to educate patients on the importance of preventative dental care.
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