A place to learn, grow, and keep moving forward.
Merkes RDH was created to support dental hygienists at every stage—from students preparing to enter the profession to practicing hygienists continuing to grow.
Education should feel clear, useful, and connected to real practice.
Merkes RDH was built around the belief that students learn best when information is organized, clinically relevant, and reinforced through active practice.
Understand More Deeply
Move beyond isolated facts and build a strong foundation that makes complex topics easier to remember.
Think More Clinically
Connect foundational knowledge to assessment, prevention, treatment, and patient-care decisions.
Prepare Affordably
Access structured board preparation designed with the financial reality of full-time dental hygiene students in mind.
Beyond Boards. Beyond Expectations.
The goal is not simply to help students pass an exam. It is to help future RDHs build knowledge they can carry into clinic and throughout their careers.
Dentistry has been part of my life since I was 17.
My path into dental hygiene was not linear, and that experience shaped the way I teach, support students, and think about access to board preparation.
Dental assisting school
I entered the dental field at 17 and began building the clinical foundation that would shape my career.
Years as a dental assistant
I spent 11 years gaining hands-on experience, learning from patients, and developing a deep love for dentistry.
Hygiene school as a single mom
I returned to school as a single mother of three, balancing family, full-time studies, and the demands of dental hygiene education.
Nearly seven years practicing hygiene
Today I practice in Alaska and continue to grow as a clinician, educator, wife, and mother in a blended family of eight children.
Better understanding creates better test-taking skills.
Many students are not struggling because they lack ability. They are struggling because too much information is presented as disconnected facts to memorize.
When students understand why something happens, how concepts connect, and how information applies clinically, recall becomes easier and confidence grows.
I also wanted to create a board-prep course that students could realistically afford. Dental hygiene students often cannot work while enrolled full time, yet they face substantial costs for instruments, tuition, regional exams, licensure requirements, and other board-related expenses beyond the national examination.
Quality board preparation should not become one more financial barrier. Merkes RDH is my way of giving back to the profession I love by creating something practical, affordable, and designed to work.
Built from real education, clinical experience, and student realities.
The course is being created by someone who has lived the journey from assisting to hygiene school to clinical practice.
Built by a practicing RDH
The content is shaped by current clinical experience and an understanding of what future hygienists need.
Created from real experience
Years in assisting, hygiene school, parenting, and clinical practice inform the way the material is organized.
Designed to be affordable
Pricing and structure are being built with full-time students and the cost of licensure in mind.
Clear values. Practical education.
Clarity
Complex information should be organized and explained in a way that students can actually use.
Clinical Relevance
Learning becomes stronger when it is connected to real patient care and professional responsibility.
Affordability
Students deserve quality preparation without adding unnecessary financial stress.
Growth
Education should support the transition from student to clinician and continue throughout a career.
“I created Merkes RDH to make learning feel less overwhelming, more clinically meaningful, more affordable, and more connected to the kind of hygienist each student is becoming.”
— Hannah Merkes, RDH
Build knowledge that lasts beyond boards.
Explore the Merkes RDH Board Review, discover The Merkes Method™, or use the free resources created to support your next step.