Dental technician

[crankymonkey]

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So I've been working at this dental lab for 5 years, designing copings, full crowns, bridges, etc. I was also trained on margin trimming and drawing plus a little bit of waxing. Since school and work take up most of my time (school 5 days/week + 30 hours in research lab/week + 20 hours of work on Fri and Sat), I don't have any spare time to do much volunteering and shadowing. I currently volunteer as a local TV station as a news reporter (totally irrelevant to dentistry, but I guess it helps with boosting my self-confidence), and I'm also applying for a volunteer position at a dental office. If I get accepted and shadow 1 day/week for 6 hours, I would have around 50 hours of shadowing when AADSAS cycle opens this year.

So my question is: could my work experience somehow compensate for my lack of shadowing and volunteering hours? Thanks guys.

 

[I want to go to there]

You are fine as long as you have good GPA and DAT scores. Shadowing dentists is much more valuable than volunteering at a dental office since you get to observe the procedures closely and ask questions. So, scrap volunteering and just shadow more. Dental schools don't care much about volunteering anyway.

 

[bluesky12]

50 hours is plenty for some schools, but might be on the lower end for others. But even 3 hours a week for the next 8 weeks would get you into the ~75 hour range