Italian Business Culture

There is not much of a difference between financial advisors in the United States and Italy. There
are advisors who work at banks and advisors who work independently. The arguments seem to
be the same as to bank advisors push the products of the bank, whereas independent advisors aim
to be neutral to get you preferable options. The main thing is that while the United States is
established with the independent financial advisors, and Italy is slowly making the change. The
only real differences you will see between the countries advisors is the way business is
conducted.
The first thing you will notice as a difference with the Italian culture must do with scheduled
times. It is normal for a meeting to start a little late. Meeting times are not usually taken too
strictly. If a meeting is dealing with an approaching deadline, they will make it more of a priority
to being on time. This is different from the American culture, where we tend to show up early to
meetings. I remember always hearing from my bosses in the US that you are late if you are one
time, and you are on time if you are early.
The dress code is important to the Italian culture. Formal dress attire is a must for business
meetings. Businessman tend to wear darker colored suits, and businesswomen usually wear pant
or skirt suits. You will be judged by your appearance, due to Italy being well known for their
fashion designers.
Eye contact is essential to a conversation in Italy, for it means that you are showing that you are
interested in what it being conversed. (Passport, n.d., para 2) I can tell you that it gets to the point
where it feels uncomfortable how intensely they stare at you. I always felt a little uncomfortable
talking to Italians because I wanted to look away, but I knew it was the norm to stare there.
While Americans also consider eye contact important, it normally doesnt come off as some
intense staring contest.
Italians are accommodating to other cultures when conducting business. They are likely to use
English, French, or German to conduct business with foreigners. The use of professional
translators is common amongst business transactions when necessary. English is the language
used in the United States. The U.S. does not have to accommodate much, due to English being a
widely-used language globally.
Italians show a lot of emotion when speaking. Its not uncommon to think that they are yelling at
one another when for them it is just a normal conversation (World, n.d., para 3). Interrupting
someone during a meeting is often meet with mixed feelings in the United States. In Italy, it is
normal to interrupt the speaker if you can speed up getting a point across. Both countries have a
different view on the pace of the meeting: Italians take their time and Americans like to finish as
soon as possible.
Again, there is not much of a difference for the job of a financial advisor in the United States and
Italy, but the business cultures have minor differences.

Sources
Passport to Trade 2.0. (n.d.). Business communicatoin. Retrieved
from http://businessculture.org/southern-europe/business-culture-in-italy/businesscommunication-in-italy/
World Business Culture. (n.d.) Italian Communication Styles. Retrieved from
http://www.worldbusinessculture.com/Italian-Business-Communication-Style.html

Dental Community split on Dental Therapists

There is a new emerging position forming in the dentistry field. You can look at the new position
as a mid-level oral health provider that would fit between dental hygienist and dentists.
Currently, the position is only allowed in certain states: Minnesota, Maine, Vermont and Alaska.
What is a Dental Therapist?
A dental therapist is a dental hygienist with one to two years of additional training that would
allow them to do: oral health examinations, scaling and polishing, applying fluoride and fissure
sealants, taking dental radiographs, educating patients on oral hygiene and health, undertaking
routing restorations in both baby teeth and permanent teeth on children and adults, and extracting
baby teeth under local analgesia (Health Careers, n.d., para. 3).
Differing Views
Opposition
Recently, the Ohio Association President Dr. Chris Connell released the following statement in
regards to a proposal to legalize dental therapists in Ohio, Legalizing dental therapists would be
detrimental to the oral health of Ohioans and would be an unnecessary distraction from the
progress being made in addressing the critical issue of access to dental care in Ohio. This plan
proposes inadequate training for such a broad scope of practice that includes irreversible surgical
procedures such as the cutting of gum and tooth structure with a high-speed drill, extractions and
restorations. (OHIO, 2016, para. 2).
The opposing forces toward dental therapists make the argument that dental therapists cannot
receive enough training from their programs to properly carry out the tasks expected of them.
Dentists go to school for eight years so that they can be well versed in the problems that arise
with procedures such as fillings and dental extractions. With the emergence of dental therapists,
they worry about the unnecessary risks that patients will be exposed to by having less trained
professionals doing the work. It is a valid argument in the sense that if you have dentist who
have gone through extensive training to do the job, why create an inferior position to possibly do
an inferior job. The other thing that should be considered is the stress that you would be putting a
patient through if the dental therapist did something wrong, which would then require a dentist to

fix, if possible. If not, it could lead a tooth to needing advanced treatment that could possibly
lower the overall oral health of the patient. This would create more distrust toward the dental
community.
Support
Per a study done by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the report found that dental therapists offer
treatment is technically competent, safe and effective for children (Bowser, 2012, para 9). The
study was done with the hopes to eliminate the controversy toward the idea of using dental
therapists in areas with shortages of dentists.
The reason that certain states are legalizing such a position is that there is a need to dental health
care for the poor communities that live in rural areas. There has been a shortage of dentists, and
thats a problem. Oral health care is a challenge in rural areas where access to dentists is low
(McElhaney, 2014, para 8). Patients with Medicaid are often rejected for dental care due to
Medicaid low reimbursement rates (Bowser, 2012, para 4). There are lot of poor people with
children who are on Medicaid because they cannot afford regular dental insurance. If they are
rejected for care, that truly limits their options of where they can be treated. These problems
often lead to people not getting seen on a regular basis, often leading to drastic procedures
needing to be done to a tooth that would have only needed minor treatment.
Conclusion
Ultimately, people need to be treated. It is not fair that people can go without treatment due to
where they live when there is a viable option to change that. While the opposing concerns for the
health of the patient is justifiable, it is misplaced. Instead of trying to prevent progress, why not
help these programs improve their training to eliminate such concerns. I also find myself
wondering if the opposition is partially due to concerns over possible profit loss due to dental
therapists doing part of the workload.
For those patients on Medicaid, they have very little options for dental care. With providers not
willing to be paid less to see them, it makes sense for states to pass legislation to allow dental
therapists who will. If dentists are not willing to work in certain areas, why not put some dental
therapists there to help people.
References:
Bowser, B.A. (2012, April 10). Dental Therapists Safe Pulling American Teeth, Study Says.
Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/relief-ahead-for-us-dental-crisis-reportfinds-therapists-effective/
McElhaney, A. (2014, May 6). Dental therapists aim to fill in oral health shortfalls. Retrieved
from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/06/dental-therapists-oral-healthdisparities/7422773/

Health Careers. (n.d.). Dental therapist. Retrieved from

https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/dental-team/dental-therapist
OHIO DENTAL ASSOCIATION. (2016, March 17). ODA issues statement against dental
therapist proposal. Retrieved from https://www.oda.org/news/detail.dT/oda-issues-statementagainst-dental-therapist-proposal/

Stop Flossing?
Since the release of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines of American, a new controversy has started.
The current guidelines decided to omit flossing your teeth, which had been included in
previous versions. This led to plenty of news articles to be written by companies like the
Associated Press that claimed that flossing is no longer a reliable practice in the dental world
(Donn, 2016, Para. 2). They go as far as to state that the research that has been conducted in the
past was very unreliable, with many concluding that there was minor or no evidence to consider
flossing an effective practice in combating plaque. The Health and Human Services responded to
the critics of flossing with a statement about why the federal government chose to drop the
recommendation from its guidelines. It stated that due to the lack of research studied by the
current authors, they felt they could not add a recommendation that they were not educated about
(Manchir, 2016, para. 5). The American Dental Organization has responded with research that
has been shown floss to be effective. Yet those studies were also criticized by the Associated
Press, that felt they had many flaws.
Weird?
I remember growing up as a child and the number one thing I always heard from the dental
hygienists was to make it a priority to floss. They would use some weird saying like, you dont
have to floss all of your teeth, just the ones you want to keep. As a child, it was an effective
scare tactic to convince me to floss my teeth. That is why as an adult it was weird to read an
article claiming that flossing was not effective. I think the question you must ask yourself is,
what harm comes from flossing my teeth? If you are a daily flosser, you have likely removed
pieces of food at some point in your life that was stuck between your teeth. If you are like me,
that is more than enough reason to keep flossing. Can you imagine the bacteria that gets between
your teeth that your toothbrush can reach? The bacteria between your teeth is no different than
the bacteria on the front, back, and occlusal surfaces.

This makes me think back on my days of working in the dental field. I started out by working in
the periodontics department. It was there that I started to understand how necessary it was to get
cleanings every year. The periodontists would pull endless amounts of plaque and tarter out from
between the teeth. The periodontist would then spend a significant amount of time educating new
patients about the importance to flossing and brushing. The ones that stated they were now
flossing on a regular basis would come back with far cleaner areas between their teeth. Not only

that, the gum tissue surrounding their teeth would have a healthier appearance as well. I
eventually moved to the hygiene department my last year of work, and did plenty of cleanings
myself. The patients that flossed always had healthier gum tissue, and cleaner interproximal
areas between the teeth. For those who did not floss, the amount of plaque and tarter between the
teeth were significantly worse than those who did. I cant imagine how this could be healthy for
your oral health.
Will this affect the dental fields recommendations?
Regardless of the critics like the Associated Press of the research conducted on flossing, those
who have worked within the dental field can speak firsthand about how effective floss can be in
regards to your overall oral health. The key will always come down to proper flossing. That is
why you will not be seeing any changes from the dental field that pertains to flossing.
References
Donn, J. (2016, August 2). Medical benefits of dental floss unproven. Retrieved from
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/f7e66079d9ba4b4985d7a f350619a9e3/medical-benefits-dentalfloss-unproven
Manchir, M. (2016, August 2).Retrieved from http://www.ada.org/en/publications/adanews/2016-archive/august/association-responds-to-news-story-challenging-benefits-of-dentalfloss-use

DENTAL HYGIENIST
Have you ever been to a dental clinic before? Chances are that you have been going to a dental
clinic most your life, and you have been seen by a dental hygienist annually. The dental hygienist
plays an important role in your preventative oral health care.
What does a Dental Hygienist do?
Here is a list of responsibilities taken from the American Dental Association of what a typical
dental hygienist does daily:

patient screening procedures; such as assessment of oral health conditions, review of the
health history, oral cancer screening, head and neck inspection, dental charting and taking
blood pressure and pulse
taking and developing dental radiographs (x-rays)
removing calculus and plaque (hard and soft deposits) from all surfaces of the teeth
applying preventive materials to the teeth (e.g., sealants and fluorides)
teaching patients appropriate oral hygiene strategies to maintain oral health;
(e.g., tooth brushing, flossing and nutritional counseling)
counseling patients about good nutrition and its impact on oral health

making impressions of patients' teeth for study casts (models of teeth used by dentists to
evaluate patient treatment needs)
performing documentation and office management activities

As you can see, that is a lot more than just cleaning your teeth.
What are the educational requirements?
Collegegrad says that dental hygienists need an associates degree in dental hygiene for clinical
practice. A bachelors or masters degree is needed if they wish to conduct research, teach, or
practice clinical procedures in a public or school health program. Dental Hygiene programs
usually take 3 years to complete. The program focuses on the study of anatomy, physiology,
nutrition, radiography, medical ethics, head and neck anatomy, patient management, and
periodontics.
After receiving a degree in dental hygiene, you are then required to get the applicable license per
your state rules. Along with getting a dental hygiene license, you will likely be expected to get a
CPR certification.
What are the career opportunities for a Dental Hygienist?
A dental hygienist can work in both educational and clinical settings. When it comes to clinical
settings, they typically work at dental, pediatric and periodontal clinics.
Job Outlooks for Dental Hygienists?
The outlook is great for dental hygienists. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment
of dental hygienists is projected to grow 19 percent from 2014 to 2024. That is about 40,000 new
jobs waiting for future hygienists. This information does not come as much of a surprise. The
baby boomers are getting older, and their oral hygiene is better than previous generations.
Whereas in the past, those older patients would not have likely required as many cleanings due to
loss of teeth, the baby boomers will. There will also be another problem that comes with time,
periodontal disease. As people age, they eventually lose teeth. The bone that surrounds the
missing teeth will start to recede, and the gum tissue will soon follow. These patients will require
advanced dental cleanings called root planning and scaling. This should create more jobs for
hygienists at periodontal clinics.
Sources:
https://collegegrad.com/careers/dental-hygienists
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/dental-hygienists.htm#tab-1
http://www.ada.org/en/education-careers/careers-in-dentistry/dental-team-careers/dentalhygienist