Chairside Clinical Support
Understand what is happening in the operatory well enough to support it, describe it accurately, and know exactly where your part of it stops.
Why this one
Most of the people in a dental office have never had the clinical work explained to them properly. They learn the words by overhearing them and the workflow by copying whoever trained them. This fills that in: what the procedures are, what the equipment and materials do, what the team does at each stage, and the line between understanding treatment and deciding it. It does not teach anyone to perform dentistry, and it is explicit about that on every page.
Who it is for
Assistants, hygiene coordinators, front desk staff and students who work around treatment without performing it
What you will be able to do
The exam is written against this list. Nothing on it is decorative.
- Name any tooth, surface and direction, and read a chart entry correctly
- Follow a restorative appointment and say what each instrument and machine is for
- Explain occlusion, margins and the common procedure vocabulary to a colleague
- Describe an implant as three separate components with three separate records
- Set up and support a surgical appointment, and handle the sterilization chain it needs
- Recognise the questions that belong to the dentist, and route them there rather than answering
- Build a tray, place suction and turn a room over without being told
- Read a periodontal chart and say what every entry on it means
- Explain the difference between a prophy, scaling and root planing, and maintenance
The curriculum
5 courses, 30 lessons. Take them in any order. Every lesson you finish anywhere on the site counts here automatically.
Dental Terminology and Charting
Tooth numbering, surfaces and directions, the anatomy behind the vocabulary, reading a chart, procedure and specialty terms, and charting cleanly in the software.
Not started
Understanding Restorative Dentistry
What restorative dentistry actually covers, so the rest of the team can follow it: direct and indirect work, the materials and machines behind them, the lab relationship, occlusion explained properly, and how it all gets scheduled and described.
Not started
Understanding Implants, Surgery and Specialty Care
Implants, surgery, endodontics, periodontics, orthodontics and removable work, explained for the people around the chair: the components, the setups, the referral chain, and what the team does before and after.
Not started
Chairside Assisting: The Craft Around the Chair
The craft of working chairside: the instruments and the tray, isolation and moisture control, room turnover and the sterilization handoff, the materials you handle all day, and the four-handed rhythm.
Not started
Understanding Hygiene and Preventive Care
The hygiene department as a working part of the practice: the appointment start to finish, the perio chart explained properly, what prophy and SRP and maintenance actually are, the preventive toolkit, and recall.
Not started
The final exam
This is what separates the certification from a stack of completion records.
Locked until the coursework is done
All 30 lessons have to be recorded complete before the exam will open. There is no skip.
Drawn from 120 questions
Your paper is 30 questions pulled at random from the entire pool, across all 5 courses. The answer order is shuffled too.
Timed, 40 minutes
Long enough to think, short enough that you cannot look everything up as you go.
80% to pass, fresh paper on a retake
Retakes are unlimited and free, and each one draws a new set of questions from the pool. After a failed attempt you get every missed question back with the answer and an explanation, so a retake is a second read rather than a second guess.
Checking your progress in this browser.
What the certificate is, and what it is not
It is a record that you worked through 30 lessons and then passed a 30-question comprehensive exam at 80% or better, with a reference code that stops matching if the name, program, date or score is changed after it is issued. It is reasonable to put on a resume, in a personnel file, or in front of an employer who asks what you actually know about what actually happens in the operatory.
It is not continuing education credit, a licence, or a state credential. ChairsideSource is not accredited by any dental board or professional body and holds no CE provider status, so this carries no CE hours. There is no proctor and there are no accounts, which means the certificate records that the exam was passed in this browser, not who was sitting at it. Anyone reading it can check the code at the verification page, and that page says the same thing.
Being straight about that is the point. A certificate that claims more than it can back would be worth less than one that claims exactly what it is.
This guide is educational content and does not constitute legal, financial, tax, or clinical advice. Laws and regulations vary by state and change over time. Consult your own dental-specific attorney, CPA, and state dental board before acting.