Health Services: Dental Hygienist
Health Services
Dental Hygienist: Diane Kockelman
By Alice Keesing • Photos by Scott T. Kubo
As a kid, Diane Kockelman always loved going to the dentist. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that she never had any cavities. (Or perhaps it had something to do with the lollypops handed out afterward.) Whatever it was, she grew up and turned that childhood fascination into a rewarding career.
When Diane graduated from Leilehua and enrolled at UH-M?noa, she knew she wanted a career that allowed her to help others. She was enrolled in the school of social work when a friend told her about the dental hygiene program in the nursing school.
Intrigued, Diane decided to apply. The dental hygiene program is unique in the country in that it is the only baccalaureate program with a three-year major area—by the time they graduate, students have gained diverse experience in the field.
“Oh gosh,” Diane says when she looks back to the coursework of the first year. “It was all science; it was very difficult.”
In the second year, students begin working with patients and, in the third year, they work with a periodontist on advanced cases and surgeries.
When Diane graduated in 1999, she began working in private practices. For the last five years she has been with Cecil Riter in the Ala Moana Building. It’s a great office to work in, she says, which is very important for job satisfaction. As a mom, she also appreciates the flexibility her job gives her in being able to schedule time off when she needs it.
As a licensed hygienist, Diane can perform non-surgical procedures such as scaling and root-planing, which requires anesthesia.
But the most important part of her job is educating her clients, she says.
“Helping people is really rewarding,” she says. “I’d say 80 percent of the time, or maybe more, patients come back and they’ve been able to stay on a maintenance schedule. It’s a really good feeling.”
The flip side—and the challenge—is when patients don’t maintain their oral health.
“Sometimes you care about people’s teeth more than they care about them themselves,” she says. “It can be frustrating when things don’t go the way you plan. I’m always left wondering what I could have said that might’ve made the difference.”
Of course, Diane has seen some mouths in pretty bad shape. Does she get grossed out?
“I’m asked that a lot,” she says with a laugh. “And I don’t ever get grossed out. You just have so much empathy for the patient. When you do this job, you’ve really got to be empathetic. That’s the No. 1 thing.” And, by the way, in case you were wondering, Diane flosses her teeth three or four times a day.