End of D3, not feeling confident for real life dentistry...

[SnowDent98]

Hi everyone,
What did you do to make you feel confident practicing first year out of school?
So I am at the end of my D3. I love clinical experience and work hard on it, but I keep feeling not confident due to the lack of patients/procedures, and that is totally out of my control. I understand that dental school is still nothing, but I am just trying to get as much experience as I can. So far I have done:
Extractions: 20 (10 simple, 10 surgical including easy thirds.)
Crowns: 3
Fillings: 30 (all classes combined.)
SRP: 10 quads
Alveoloplasty: 3 quads
Complete Dentures: 3 arches.
Prophy (lol... 30.)
Pedo restoratives, RCT, RPD, FPD: 0
Furthermore, every time I reviewed the lectures previously taught in D2, I felt extremely insecure as there are so many more things I need to know to be a good/confident dentist later (Maryland/ Rochette bridge, double abutment bridge, implant, GTR, veneers, crown lengthening, how to deal with broken hand files when RCT/perforation, oral pathologies, etc,...) I understand that I still have more year to go, I might have some more experience in the procedures that I marked as 0 above. Nonetheless, with all those taught-but-not-done procedures, I don't see I will be confident enough for 20 patients/day right out of school later. If you have any advice to improve during school or tips just right out of school, I would really appreciate it.
Thank you.

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[bracketbuster68]

You still have one more year to go. You'll learn a lot. I think the fact that you recognize you have so much to learn means you're smart and humble. Give it time. You have a long career ahead of you.

 

[redchesus]

I think you are ahead of me when I finished 3rd year except extractions... I also did about two to three times as much dentistry 4th year because I got quicker and quicker and the profs started letting me do more each clinic session. You'll be fine.
Just focus on bread and butter dentistry right now and not worry about the knowing everything. Once you start practicing you can hone in on what you want to focus on.

I have a classmate who literally has not done a single RPD, bridge or amalgam since leaving school because his patient demographic just doesn't demand them.

 

[PerioDont]

Hi everyone,
What did you do to make you feel confident practicing first year out of school?
So I am at the end of my D3. I love clinical experience and work hard on it, but I keep feeling not confident due to the lack of patients/procedures, and that is totally out of my control. I understand that dental school is still nothing, but I am just trying to get as much experience as I can. So far I have done:
Extractions: 20 (10 simple, 10 surgical including easy thirds.)
Crowns: 3
Fillings: 30 (all classes combined.)
SRP: 10 quads
Alveoloplasty: 3 quads
Complete Dentures: 3 arches.
Prophy (lol... 30.)
Pedo restoratives, RCT, RPD, FPD: 0
Furthermore, every time I reviewed the lectures previously taught in D2, I felt extremely insecure as there are so many more things I need to know to be a good/confident dentist later (Maryland/ Rochette bridge, double abutment bridge, implant, GTR, veneers, crown lengthening, how to deal with broken hand files when RCT/perforation, oral pathologies, etc,...) I understand that I still have more year to go, I might have some more experience in the procedures that I marked as 0 above. Nonetheless, with all those taught-but-not-done procedures, I don't see I will be confident enough for 20 patients/day right out of school later. If you have any advice to improve during school or tips just right out of school, I would really appreciate it.
Thank you.

Respectfully, I would guess the vast majority of GPs don't do any of that stuff. Even implants which is pushed by so many CE courses are not done by a lot of GPs, and many patients just don't want them/can't afford them either (depending on the area).

Specialists exist for a reason. Don't worry about learning everything from D2 lectures.

Your only goal is to get through school. You will NOT be confident regardless of how good of a dental student you are. You will learn through trial by fire in private practice. If you really want you can do an AEGD/GPR year as well.

 

[Advance]

Hi everyone,
What did you do to make you feel confident practicing first year out of school?
So I am at the end of my D3. I love clinical experience and work hard on it, but I keep feeling not confident due to the lack of patients/procedures, and that is totally out of my control. I understand that dental school is still nothing, but I am just trying to get as much experience as I can. So far I have done:
Extractions: 20 (10 simple, 10 surgical including easy thirds.)
Crowns: 3
Fillings: 30 (all classes combined.)
SRP: 10 quads
Alveoloplasty: 3 quads
Complete Dentures: 3 arches.
Prophy (lol... 30.)
Pedo restoratives, RCT, RPD, FPD: 0
Furthermore, every time I reviewed the lectures previously taught in D2, I felt extremely insecure as there are so many more things I need to know to be a good/confident dentist later (Maryland/ Rochette bridge, double abutment bridge, implant, GTR, veneers, crown lengthening, how to deal with broken hand files when RCT/perforation, oral pathologies, etc,...) I understand that I still have more year to go, I might have some more experience in the procedures that I marked as 0 above. Nonetheless, with all those taught-but-not-done procedures, I don't see I will be confident enough for 20 patients/day right out of school later. If you have any advice to improve during school or tips just right out of school, I would really appreciate it.
Thank you.

When I was in school I didn’t do a single Partial denture, Bridge, veneer, SSC or start to finish NSRCT. I did these all for the first time as a first year GP. To be honest even if I had done some of these in dental school I probably still wouldn’t feel confident in doing them.

Also as @PerioDont said specialists exist for a reason. I love them. (I keep my endodontist on speed dial)

Just graduate, you will get more comfortable with these procedures as time goes on.

 

[schmoob]

Hi everyone,
What did you do to make you feel confident practicing first year out of school?
So I am at the end of my D3. I love clinical experience and work hard on it, but I keep feeling not confident due to the lack of patients/procedures, and that is totally out of my control. I understand that dental school is still nothing, but I am just trying to get as much experience as I can. So far I have done:
Extractions: 20 (10 simple, 10 surgical including easy thirds.)
Crowns: 3
Fillings: 30 (all classes combined.)
SRP: 10 quads
Alveoloplasty: 3 quads
Complete Dentures: 3 arches.
Prophy (lol... 30.)
Pedo restoratives, RCT, RPD, FPD: 0
Furthermore, every time I reviewed the lectures previously taught in D2, I felt extremely insecure as there are so many more things I need to know to be a good/confident dentist later (Maryland/ Rochette bridge, double abutment bridge, implant, GTR, veneers, crown lengthening, how to deal with broken hand files when RCT/perforation, oral pathologies, etc,...) I understand that I still have more year to go, I might have some more experience in the procedures that I marked as 0 above. Nonetheless, with all those taught-but-not-done procedures, I don't see I will be confident enough for 20 patients/day right out of school later. If you have any advice to improve during school or tips just right out of school, I would really appreciate it.
Thank you.

You shouldn’t feel confident because you are not ready to be n your own. Finish D4, pass your boards, get your license, and go work for corp for a year (on YOUR terms). Get your reps in, get good at NSRCT (Heartland), get good at extractions (Aspen), if you want get good at CEREC (Pacific), and become a good doctor. Dental school clinical work really doesn’t mean much. I found dental school didactics to be more applicable to real world dentistry than chasing around a faculty member for a swipe.

 

[deleted903013]

When I was in school I didn’t do a single Partial denture, Bridge, veneer, SSC or start to finish NSRCT.

Was this a Covid thing or did your school just not require them?

 

[Advance]

Was this a Covid thing or did your school just not require them?

My school required them, but yes I graduated in 2020 so my D4 year was cut short and did online competencies for the rest of the requirements. Veneers and bridges technically weren’t required specifically but there was a number of fixed units you needed and veneers, crowns and bridges counted toward that.

 

[SnowDent98]

You shouldn’t feel confident because you are not ready to be n your own. Finish D4, pass your boards, get your license, and go work for corp for a year (on YOUR terms). Get your reps in, get good at NSRCT (Heartland), get good at extractions (Aspen), if you want get good at CEREC (Pacific), and become a good doctor. Dental school clinical work really doesn’t mean much. I found dental school didactics to be more applicable to real world dentistry than chasing around a faculty member for a swipe.

Do the DSOs really have a training period (mentorship) for new dentists or do they just throw us into the water and let us use our own instinct to survive?

 

[SnowDent98]

When I was in school I didn’t do a single Partial denture, Bridge, veneer, SSC or start to finish NSRCT. I did these all for the first time as a first year GP. To be honest even if I had done some of these in dental school I probably still wouldn’t feel confident in doing them.

Also as @PerioDont said specialists exist for a reason. I love them. (I keep my endodontist on speed dial)

Just graduate, you will get more comfortable with these procedures as time goes on.

How could you survive the first year out? Mentorship?

 

[Advance]

How could you survive the first year out? Mentorship?

No, not really. It was mostly trial and error. Most bread and butter general dentistry isn’t exactly rocket science. I work at a high volume corporate office. You have to learn how to do things quickly and predictably in those types of practices. If there’s things you really don’t wanna do, just refer it.

Managing patient expectations is the best tool in your tool kit.

 

[schmoob]

Do the DSOs really have a training period (mentorship) for new dentists or do they just throw us into the water and let us use our own instinct to survive?

Like Advance said, it’s bread and butter. You work at you pace doing procedures you feel comfortable. As you gain more skill, speed, and confidence your schedule will fill up more and you do more dentistry. It will get to a point where the daily minimum doesn’t matter anymore because you will be producing above that.