NC Dental Practice Act and Board Rules (21 NCAC 16)
This domain tests whether you can locate authority: which questions are answered by the statute (N.C.G.S. Chapter 90, Article 2) and which by Board rule (Title 21, Chapter 16 of the North Carolina Administrative Code), and how the two fit together.
Who regulates what
- The N.C. State Board of Dental Examiners is created by statute and holds three core powers: licensing, rulemaking, and discipline. Its rules implement the statute; they cannot enlarge it, and when a rule conflicts with the statute, the statute controls.
- The statutory definition of "practice of dentistry" is broad and functional: diagnosis, treatment planning, surgical and nonsurgical treatment, prescribing, administering anesthetics, exposing radiographs, and holding oneself out as able to do those things.
- Board rules supply operational detail - application procedures, supervision levels, permit requirements, infection control, continuing education, and hearing practice.
Consequences of getting it wrong
Practicing without a license, or helping an unlicensed person practice, is a violation. A dentist who delegates a task beyond the legal scope commits an independent violation even where the assistant acted in good faith and the patient was not harmed.
Worked example
An office lets an unregistered front-desk employee expose bitewing radiographs "to save time." Two violations exist: the employee is practicing dentistry without a license, and the dentist aided unlicensed practice and exceeded delegation authority. The employee's on-the-job training is irrelevant; scope is fixed by the Act and rules, not by office custom.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating the Act and the rules as interchangeable. The rules implement the statute; they do not rewrite it.
- Assuming a task is delegable because it is "simple." Delegability turns on the rule's supervision category, not on difficulty.
- Forgetting that the Board's authority to inspect and to discipline flows from the same statute that grants the license.