2013 Shadowing Requirements/Recommendations

From a previous post: "Shadowing ranks among the top of misunderstood topics for DS admission. Shadowing is designed to acquaint the prospective dental student with the daily life of a dentist. It is about observing the atmosphere in a dental office, the interaction between staff, practitioner and patient and, more importantly,about the procedures performed in a dental office." It is reasonable to expect a prospective applicant to have done some shadowing before an application for admission is submitted. It should not take months or years to make a determination on whether dentistry is the right choice. Shadowing is not intended for on the job training. Ideally, an applicant should shadow a general dentist for 4-8 hours/day for about 3-4 days. Since not all offices are created equal, whenever possible, shadowing should not be limited to a single office, especially when the practice may be limited in scope. Observing the entire spectrum of dental procedures- restorative, oral surgery, prosthodontic, endodontic, periodontic, pedodontic, orthodontic- would be ideal. For the more demanding applicant, shadowing a specialist is recommended.

Seeking a position as a dental assistant for the sole purpose of getting more "dental experience" is counterproductive. Time would be better spent improving the gpa and/or the dat scores.

Thanks doc!

what if while shadowing a dentist one was offered a job? surely that couldnt hurt an application to have worked in a dentists office part time while still taking classes right?

I assume the hours need to be tracked by the prospective student and signed off on by the dentist to prove the shadowing occurred for the required applications, correct? I am currently tracking my hours (~4 per week) and procedures observed. By interview time, I expect to have over 100 logged, but this doesn't count the 500+ I tallied back in 1998 while shadowing a now-retired dentist in Virginia. I will certainly mention that in my application and whatever interviews I have (assuming I get one), but I won't have traceability of those hours with the dentist being retired.

Thanks for posting this!

acoburn73 said:

I assume the hours need to be tracked by the prospective student and signed off on by the dentist to prove the shadowing occurred for the required applications, correct? I am currently tracking my hours (~4 per week) and procedures observed. By interview time, I expect to have over 100 logged, but this doesn't count the 500+ I tallied back in 1998 while shadowing a now-retired dentist in Virginia. I will certainly mention that in my application and whatever interviews I have (assuming I get one), but I won't have traceability of those hours with the dentist being retired.

Thanks for posting this!

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You don't need them to sign off, you just type how many hours you've done and they assume you don't lie. They don't even ask for contact information.

Hey doctoothache! I wonder if you have stats on state schools and what percentage of their total applicants are in fact in state residents. Thanks for all your awesome work! There should be a flashing sticky telling newbies to just go directly to your excel sheets.

acoburn73 said:

I assume the hours need to be tracked by the prospective student and signed off on by the dentist to prove the shadowing occurred for the required applications, correct? I am currently tracking my hours (~4 per week) and procedures observed. By interview time, I expect to have over 100 logged, but this doesn't count the 500+ I tallied back in 1998 while shadowing a now-retired dentist in Virginia. I will certainly mention that in my application and whatever interviews I have (assuming I get one), but I won't have traceability of those hours with the dentist being retired.

Thanks for posting this!

Click to expand...

They ask for dental experience on the application and allow 10 entries:

Name of supervisor
Title
Type of dentistry observed
Description of activities (175 characters)
Total hours
Position type (paid, shadow, volunteer, other)
Start month and year
End month and year (blank if ongoing)

Just keep doing what you're doing. Include those old hours. That's valid. No one checks on these. You'll maybe talk about it in your interview, but if you've put in the honest hours, it's nothing to worry about. I'm sure creative roundups happen quite a bit.

Msmouth said:

Hey doctoothache! I wonder if you have stats on state schools and what percentage of their total applicants are in fact in state residents. Thanks for all your awesome work! There should be a flashing sticky telling newbies to just go directly to your excel sheets.

Click to expand...

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=992010