Eventually, these oral health therapists could also help strengthen hard-pressed dental practices in small towns and rural areas.
Miss Buxcey (26), who is one of the leading members in her graduating class, will today become one of the first 30 people to graduate from the University of Otago School of Dentistry with a combined bachelor of oral health degree.
For the first time in this country, the degree offers students combined training as both oral hygienists and dental therapists.
Prof Greg Seymour, dean of the Otago School of Dentistry, said the degree was one of the biggest developments in New Zealand dentistry education for more than 30 years.
The new degree had a strong focus on preventive care and a distinctively different knowledge and research base, underpinned by social sciences, Prof Seymour said.
Programme organisers say the three-year degree is stronger clinically than its four Otago predecessor qualifications, which it now supercedes: three-year bachelor of health science degrees endorsed, respectively, in oral hygiene and dental therapy, as well as two year-long diplomas in each discipline.
Entry to all four previous programmes ended in 2006.
Professionals practising dental therapy, who used to be called school dental nurses, will still in some cases work for the School Dental Service, funded by District Health Boards, but can also work in dentistry practices beyond a school setting.
They can provide dental treatment to patients up to the age of 18, under broad supervision by a fully-qualified dentist, and hygienist care is available to patients of all ages.
Miss Buxcey, who plans to work in a dental practice in Ashburton, said she was "really proud" to be among the graduates pioneering the new degree.
"It's up to us to get out there and prove to the dentistry industry in New Zealand that we can do both of these [disciplines] and we have been well trained and we're ready for whatever challenges might come."
She believed there was a significant role for oral health therapists, including in secondary centres and rural areas, where dentistry workloads could be high and where it could be hard to attract extra dentists.
"There's really a huge need for us out there," she said.
Allison Meldrum, who convenes the new programme, said it was an exciting move to help improve New Zealand's poor oral health.
Oral health graduates would operate as part of the dental health team, just as nurses worked with doctors, "not competing but just different - different roles, different strengths".
"I think it's going to be very positive."