Rooting Within Health
Rooting Within Health explores the powerful connections between oral health and overall systemic wellness, while addressing critical issues in the dental industry that often go unspoken. Hosted by Kimberly W. Williamson, RDH, CIHC, RYT, this podcast goes beyond the surface to examine how oral health impacts our entire body, mind, and quality of life.
Through a hybrid approach of solo episodes and conversations with healthcare professionals, wellness experts, and individuals navigating their own health journeys, we'll dive into topics that matter. From oral-systemic health connections, workplace wellness and culture in healthcare settings, to behavior modifications for sustainable health to the urgent need for advocacy and reform within the dental industry - no topic is off limits.
Whether you're a dental professional seeking community and validation, a healthcare worker facing workplace challenges, or someone interested in holistic approaches to health, this podcast creates space for honest conversations and meaningful change. We're here to educate, empower, and build community around the issues that matter most - because true health starts from within, and change begins when we're willing to speak up.
Rooting Within Health
Profit Over Prevention: Why Your Dental Hygienist Can't Give You the Care You Deserve
What happens when an entire healthcare profession is designed to extract maximum profit rather than deliver optimal care? In this episode, we pull back the curtain on the modern dental practice model—both corporate chains and private practices—and reveal how it systematically exploits dental hygienists and assistants, the very clinicians who spend the most time with patients and often catch problems before they become crises.
The math is brutal: 45-minute appointment slots that demand hygienists choose between thorough cleanings, patient education, and accurate charting. Spoiler alert—something always gets sacrificed, and it's usually your care. This isn't just a corporate dental problem—private practices are equally guilty of prioritizing production over patient outcomes. We break down how "assisted hygiene" models treat skilled clinicians as interchangeable cogs in a production machine, stripping away the relationship-based preventative care that once defined the profession.
In this episode, we dive deep into:
- How production-driven dentistry took over—in both corporate offices and private practices—replacing the preventative care model that actually kept people healthy
- Why conveyor-belt scheduling is a disaster for both clinicians burning out under impossible demands and patients receiving rushed, incomplete care
- The stark differences between general and pediatric dentistry practice models and what they reveal about priorities
- The hidden costs of unsustainable practice structures: repetitive strain injuries, moral injury, and a mass exodus from the profession
- The gender politics no one talks about: how a 97% female workforce laboring under predominantly male ownership and authority creates textbook conditions for wage suppression, dismissed concerns, and systematically silenced voices
- What actually needs to change—from scheduling structures to compensation models to who holds decision-making power
This isn't abstract labor politics. This is about the quality of care sitting in that chair. Whether it's a corporate chain or a family-owned practice, when your hygienist is racing against the clock, when they're too burnt out to catch early warning signs, when they've learned their clinical judgment will be overridden by production metrics—you pay the price.
Your dental health depends on the people the entire industry treats as expendable. It's time we talked about why.