experience as a volunteer, shadower and assistant...

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wantVCUdental

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Do you guys do any "work" in those experiences?
i have heard of people who just observe and i wonder how that is any useful...
has anyone actually got to do an extraction? clean patients' teeth? write charts etc?

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no offense, but if a volunteer can do extraction and clean teeth why would we go through so much trouble to become a dentist?

Shadowing in my personal experience, is pretty boring after a several days. Simply because you are looking over the dentist's shoulder all the time.
From what I hear, some students get to hold the thingie that sucks out saliva, but my dentist never let me do anything (liability, patient uncomfortability, etc)
It's just your luck I guess...
 
Shadowing is incredibly boring and you hardly learn anything. I have years of experience working as a dental assistant and went to observe various specialty offices, they all had me sit and watch. The office I've worked in the most has a Dr. with a great attitude and if you come to observe in scrubs you get to sit and suck spit. If you come in a shirt and tie, you get to watch and if you come in levi's you are sent home. He's also willing to help you place an extracted tooth in a blob of cement so you can drill into it and see what it's like handling a drill, and how it feels to cut into a tooth.
Learning to take an x-ray and holding the saliva ejector is really all I can see anyone allowing you to do. In most states you're supposed to be certified even to do those things. A good portion of offices are going paperless and do all of the charting on the computer and unless you are already familiar with the software...
Try to find a really cool Dr. is my advice. I would even ask them to allow you to have some hands on interaction, worst case, they say no. I can't imagine making a career decision based on 100 hours of watching someone do something.
 
I did charting and some assisting. Fun stuff. I doubt you will do any of that shadowing though.
 
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