Dental Assistant

[sportsplayer24]

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Hey are any of you guys Dental Assistants? How would I become one? And would it help?

 

[DentPursuer88]

hey I am a dental assistant.

Some offices require experience, others don't care. If you go to a few offices around your area, ask them if they would hire you as an OJT assistant or On Job Training assistant. You can get paid while being in your dental environment. If that doesn't work out, which didn't work out for me, I would say go to a dental assisting program for about 9 months, and get the training you want and then start working and take your pre-reqs. The only downside of that is that most training schools are around 12000. If you have the money for that do it, if you don't make sure you'll be able to take out a loan and pay it off, that's what I have to do. Don't stop trying though, I am sure you will find a good dentist that would let you do the OJT route. Good luck, if you need any more help PM me. Take care.

 

[DentPursuer88]

$12,000.

 

[ibeflossin]

I am an Orthodontic Assistant. I started as a sterilization technician, but became certified as an assistant in about 4 months. The Orthodontist was my personal Orthodontist, so that kind of helped a little bit. So I started with sterilizing tools and ended w/ bonding and de-bonding braces!

 

[bodiddely]

I volunteer as an assistant at a local IHS clinic. It took a couple months to get all the paperwork processed but other than that it was pretty easy to set up. They offered to train me after I had been in a few times to shadow.

 

[ought2sleep]

I'm a dental assistant. After I finished undergrad I submitted applications to 20-30 offices explaining my situation (want to be a dentist, etc.). I interviewed at 4 places, but 3 of them said they would love to train me except they would want me for more than a year. The last one hired me and I'm still working there!

 

[laugh]

I worked as an assistant for just over a year. How did the admissions com. view your assisting experience? Did you think it gave you an 'edge' over others? I also worked at a crown and bridge dental lab for two years. I sure hope all my dental work experience is viewed positively.

 

[jdoc04]

Being a dental assistant gave me plenty of dental experience. I don't know if it gave me an edge over those who just shadowed. Remember dental experiences is only one part of the application as a whole. A good GPA & DAT without any dental experience do you no good and the same goes for dental experience with nothing else to backup your application. If you can do it then go for it, you will learn a lot and have fun doing it.

 

[ought2sleep]

I don't know if assisting gave me an edge in my application, but I do think it gave me an edge during my interviews on questions pertaining to dentistry. For questions like, "what would you change in dentistry", "what will you contribute to the field" etc, I had no trouble answering and I didn't have to prethink questions.

 

[Frederico Albin]

I am on the same boat as you are.
I am just now starting my undergraduate study/pre-requesites and also looking for a job as a dentist assistant, but I'm confused about what to put on my resume.
I did write a big paragraph about how interested I am in dentistry... but I think theres something missing in there, and I also have no experience which makes it a little bit harder, but I'm not giving up.
I'm doing this more for the experience and being around the environment that I will be in for the rest of my life than for the money.
If any of you guys have more comments/tips about "dental assistants", keep talking, I love this thread. haha 😛