Does dental assisting count as shadowing?

[Alectrify]

I have 50 hours of traditional shadowing with a general practioner, and another 75 hours of doing actual DA work at a volunteer clinic. I want to meet the minimum 100 hour shadowing quota, but if I listed the two activities above as is, would they count the dental assisting hours as "shadowing?" My DA experience was far more impactful than my shadowing experience and I want to differentiate between the two, but I don't want to seem lacking in shadowing hours. Thanks for any insight! 🙂

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[100%permwinner]

I think that makes sense. Working and observing at the same time.

 

[whitepapertree]

Nope

 

[RuffDay]

I just started my dental assisting job, and I will say it is totally different from shadowing.

Shadowing you can see how the dentist interacts with their patient and the dentist also explains to you everything you will need to know about dentistry. Often times, dental assistant know the basic knowledge to get through the procedure without the dentist explaining it any further. You will get only one-few times explanation in comparison to shadowing, where you have multiple explanations.

 

[pinetree305]

I have 50 hours of traditional shadowing with a general practioner, and another 75 hours of doing actual DA work at a volunteer clinic. I want to meet the minimum 100 hour shadowing quota, but if I listed the two activities above as is, would they count the dental assisting hours as "shadowing?" My DA experience was far more impactful than my shadowing experience and I want to differentiate between the two, but I don't want to seem lacking in shadowing hours. Thanks for any insight! 🙂

i dont know if i did it correctly or not but i listed my shadowing and assisting hours together when i described the clinic i volunteer at (120 hrs total). It may be different since that's my tmdsas app.

i think doing either should count as your dental exposure so it shouldnt matter that much.

 

[I want to go to there]

It counts as work and dental schools add the hours of shadowing and assisting on their own, so don't double count.

 

[Alectrify]

But what if I volunteered as a DA? Does it still count as "work"? If dental schools had recommended shadowing/assisting, this ambiguity would've been dismissed. It almost seems stupid to not see assisting as shadowing (if volunteer) since assisting consists of much more, but sigh, can't make assumptions.

 

[dentistaazzurro18]

I would see it as shadowing for sure. Those people who assisted in my class are way ahead of the game. Just do whatever feels right and honest to you but I would say you totally earned those hours and deserve to have them count as shadowing.

 

[ajj70]

Since you were not paid for the work, I would put it either as shadowing or volunteering.

 

[minion ji]

I just started my dental assisting job, and I will say it is totally different from shadowing.

Shadowing you can see how the dentist interacts with their patient and the dentist also explains to you everything you will need to know about dentistry. Often times, dental assistant know the basic knowledge to get through the procedure without the dentist explaining it any further. You will get only one-few times explanation in comparison to shadowing, where you have multiple explanations.

i want to ask that being a foreign trained dentist in usa. we can do shadowing its like observation in a dental clinic, right but for volunteering what is the rule for us like can we do voluntarily work as a dental assistant work r we have to get xray licence first then we can do voluntarily dental assistant work if we wnt in a dental clinic??im confused kindy guide me ??thnx il really appreciate it