Why do you never see any middle-aged dental nurses?

[HollowTalk]

I went to the dental hygienist today and once again noticed that I never ever see middle-aged dental hygienists or dental nurses. What happens to them? Is there a different career path that they go onto take?

There's definitely a couple at our practice. One has been there years.

There are several at my practice too. I wonder if its just where you go.

What do you count as middle aged? The two dental nurses and the hygienist at my dentist practice are all between 40-55.

Hygienists yes, dental nurses no.

The one at my practice is likely in her 50s. Maybe just where you live or your practice.

My friends a dental nurse and she’s 56

I was a dental nurse in my early twenties and I worked with plenty of “middle aged” dental nurses.
The pay used to be terrible (though I’ve checked some job adverts recently and it’s significantly more now which is good as there is so much more to it than people assume) so maybe it’s just a case of people moving up and on the better paid jobs as was my case!

Because they all marry dentists and never have to work another day in their lives?////// ,maybe.

The hygienists at ours are all over 40. The dental nurses are young but the money is crap so I think they just move on.
The hygienists are largely self employed apparently.

That’s a sweeping statement.
Both the dental nurses I’ve seen recently have been middle aged women.
Similar to most professions I expect!

Back ache.
My dentist always sits on a chair and has my chair, light etc exactly at the right height and angle for her to dentist away and the nurse has to stand and lean awkwardly with the sucky thing.

I'm in my 50s, it's only in the last 10 years or so that I've encountered dental nurses/hygienists that are younger than me.

My dental nurse and hygienist are both women in their 50s.

We have dental nurses that range from 17 to 62. We often lose them during their 30s but they usually return as children grow up. Now that you have to have qualification to work as a dental nurse it can be a bit of a deterrent for women wanting to retrain and enter as children are growing up. But better rates of pay are making it more attractive to those wanting a career change.
Women dentists are also more common after they introduced maternity pay in the early 1990s. Prior to that many women left the profession and didn’t return. When I did a quick check of my year group a few years ago I think only a couple out of 40 female graduates had left the profession. We are all now reaching 60 and retiring now.

I work as a dental nurse and my practice has nurses between the ages of 25 and 55. I also worked with 2 that left because they were retiring in their 60s. It might just be your practice, some companies are so bad and have a high turn over of staff, the older nurses don't stand for any nonsense so won't work in places like that.

My dad is a dentist and some of his nurses have been with him since he opened the practice in northern Scotland 30+ years ago. Some prefer to work more reception type roles now, guessing as off their feet and a bit more relaxing, and just do patient care when needed

Mine is middle aged and was talking about exactly this to her young trainee at my last visit.

Past your bedtime.

Off you go....

It appears I am wrong! I was basing it on three different practices. It wasn't because I thought they were all marrying dentists! I did wonder whether the pay was very low though and I wondered whether they perhaps went into something like Botox or that sort of thing which would be more lucrative.

The dental nurse at the surgery I went to Monday was in her 40/50s

So now I just have to wonder why there are none at my dentist's...

There are ones at my practice too

I've seen one