Welcome to the Santa Barbara Dental Hygienists' Association

Western Regional Dental Hygiene Examination approved for
California Dental Hygiene Licensure

California will soon be listed as one of the states accepting the dental hygiene clinical examination administered by the western Regional Examination Board or WREB, thus dramatically increasing the portability of a dental hygiene license across the country.

WREB, a not for profit testing agency administered its first examination in 1977 in Oregon. Since then WREB has grown to include 15 member states as well as having its test results recognized by an additional 16 non-member states. The WREB has been a recognized examination for dentistry in California since 2006. Click here for more information on the WREB.

The first step towards accepting results from WREB for dental hygiene licensure in California were achieved in August of this year when Governor Schwarzenegger signed AB403 which allows for WREB examination results to be recognized for the clinical dental examination in California. The next step will be for the newly formed Dental Hygiene Committee of California to establish the regulations for this process which may take up to two years.
Watch the CDHA web site for the latest information on this process.

The minimum requirement for each renewal period is 25 hours of continuing education, including: * Basic Life Support. Licensees renewing for the first time are exempt from this requirement.
* 2 hours of California Infection Control
* 2 hours of California Dental Practice Act

Note: Infection Control and California Dental Practice Act may be taken online at any of the registered continuing education web sites (below).

For specific info about courses required and accepted see Title 16, Division 10, Chapter 1, Article 4, #1016
For general information see #1017
Both are at http://www.dbc.ca.gov/lawsregs/regulations/ch1_article4.shtml

Category I and Category II are no more, but there are topics that can be taken without limit, some topics that are limited to 20% of the units, and some that are not accepted at all. Only 50% of units can be "correspondence" (see 1017.h)

Registered Dental Hygienist in Alternate Practice
35 CE's for relicensure.
17 CE's can be home-study.
For more information: Click Here