Hate waxing = Hate Dentistry?

[surgeon_hopeful]

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Hi,

I recently went to one of OHSU's dental exploring program sessions where we got a chance to try and wax up a dental crown. I know that I shouldn't be judging dentistry solely off of one bad experience, but I absolutely hated waxing, and am starting to rule out the possibility of a career in dentistry. My question is, is this all dentists do? I thought that dentistry would be more diagnosing diseases and treat them. Instead, it seems to me more like a glorified art class. Is this description apt, or ois this just a small part of it?

 

[SuperTrooper]

Hi,

I recently went to one of OHSU's dental exploring program sessions where we got a chance to try and wax up a dental crown. I know that I shouldn't be judging dentistry solely off of one bad experience, but I absolutely hated waxing, and am starting to rule out the possibility of a career in dentistry. My question is, is this all dentists do? I thought that dentistry would be more diagnosing diseases and treat them. Instead, it seems to me more like a glorified art class. Is this description apt, or ois this just a small part of it?

If you don't want to, you don't have to do any waxing as a dentist in private practice. Also, you just did one crown, and it was your first try? Waxing is really hard at first: really tedious, and quite annoying. Waxing can become fun after a while once you get the hang of it though: and I mean after waxing dozens of teeth. I wouldn't rule out dentistry just cause of this one experience.

 

[Lesley]

Hi,

I recently went to one of OHSU's dental exploring program sessions where we got a chance to try and wax up a dental crown. I know that I shouldn't be judging dentistry solely off of one bad experience, but I absolutely hated waxing, and am starting to rule out the possibility of a career in dentistry. My question is, is this all dentists do? I thought that dentistry would be more diagnosing diseases and treat them. Instead, it seems to me more like a glorified art class. Is this description apt, or ois this just a small part of it?

Hi surgeon_hopeful, No, dentists do not spend the majority of their time waxing up crowns, very rarely. It is a dental school exercise to teach students tooth morphology and to hone their hand skills.

But, you will spend a lot of time as a dentist preparing and cutting teeth. You will prepare teeth for fillings and then fill them. You will spend a lot of time preparing teeth for crowns and then fitting crowns. So, there is a lot of drilling involved. In a lot of ways, it is artistic.

Before you do that you will spend time reviewing the patient's medical history and doing a clincial exam of their oral cavity and teeth. But dentists spend a large part of their day treating dental disease. For most general dentists, it means spending a lot of time removing decay, filling teeth, taking impresssions, restoring broken down teeth with crowns and replacing missing teeth with bridges, dentures or implants. It can also include treating root canal infections or gum disease.

Dentists use their hands a lot. No way around it. Dental students get use to working with a lot of dental instruments and materials during dental school. I wrote in an earlier post, the first week of dental school, when we were given our dental kits with what seemed like hundreds of instruments with all different kinds of names, was a very difficult week. Overwhelming, yes, but everyone gets through it. After a while, each student finds out what instruments work best in their hands and then life and waxing starts to get easier!

It would not be a bad idea for you to shadow a dentist to find out more about dentistry and what it entails. It will give you a better picture of the practice and profession of dentistry, and you'll have a better idea if it suits you. Practice makes perfect, that includes dental school exercises! Good luck.

 

[johntara04]

Almost everyone hates waxing when they start. When you get good at it and can pound out a molar in minimul time, it is not so bad. You just have to get good at it. The better you are at something, the more you like it.

 

[dentist_to_be?]

Hi,

I recently went to one of OHSU's dental exploring program sessions where we got a chance to try and wax up a dental crown. I know that I shouldn't be judging dentistry solely off of one bad experience, but I absolutely hated waxing, and am starting to rule out the possibility of a career in dentistry. My question is, is this all dentists do? I thought that dentistry would be more diagnosing diseases and treat them. Instead, it seems to me more like a glorified art class. Is this description apt, or ois this just a small part of it?

hahahhaa... Dont worry, waxing is something you only do like first 2 months of dental school, to understand tooth anatomy. However, some of the skills you use during waxing, you need for other procedures, like making amalgam/composite restorations. It is important that you like working with your hands. If you hate working with wax, thats not a big issue. Wax is an important material, but you dont have to love working with it.

 

[Ething]

the question of the century: are all of these hands on skills trainable? Have you seen people who couldnt be trained?

 

[Lesley]

the question of the century: are all of these hands on skills trainable? Have you seen people who couldnt be trained?

Yes, I think most people can be trained, even if it doesn't come as naturally as it does for others. Most people start to enjoy something once they get the hang of it.

However, you can't necessary make someone like something. For instance, my husband doesn't like to dance, you could give him lessons and he could learn, but he doesn't want to learn, because he's very sure he doesn't like it. It just not for him.

Having an idea of what dental work entails, shadowing in a dental office or lab gives students a very good feel for what dentists do. Being a dental patient would not provide the same perspective.

 

[SayAHHH]

Hi,

I recently went to one of OHSU's dental exploring program sessions where we got a chance to try and wax up a dental crown. I know that I shouldn't be judging dentistry solely off of one bad experience, but I absolutely hated waxing, and am starting to rule out the possibility of a career in dentistry. My question is, is this all dentists do? I thought that dentistry would be more diagnosing diseases and treat them. Instead, it seems to me more like a glorified art class. Is this description apt, or ois this just a small part of it?

wow i'm new to forums but i've been browsing for months. my question is this: why do you even want to be a dentist? it doesn't seem like you know much about it if you think waxing is the greater part of your daily activities. to answer your question most of that is usually done in an offsite lab. most dentists will never touch a wax instrument after their 1st year dental occlusion class ever again... that job is left for the dental technician in most cases.

that being said, yes dentists diagnose and treat diseases, but as a general dentist its not normally a daily thing to say "next patient, i want to check you for diseases". its more like "next person with the cavity i need to fill!".

now if a patient unknowingly comes in with bell's palsy, you can inform the patient of it and let him/her know why food keeps dribbling out of their mouth and such.

my next rant: like said above, waxing is not something you do a lot. its for learning tooth anatomy, contact points, etc. because these are important when making crowns, dentures, etc. you'll learn this in occlusion. hating this doesn't equate hating of the profession but DO REALIZE that if you aren't comfortable working with your hands, do us all a favor and turn your head to another field. i hate seeing dentists that are book smart with big clumsy ass hands. what good is that? do you realize that the amount of space you have to work in every day is about the size of a fist? do you want to be the one that CAUSES bell's palsy in a patient?


do some research, for God's sake shadow a dentist (and not just one kind), and work on your hand skills. this stuff can be learned but seeing some classmates work on their teeth gives me the shivers. also, while i'm at it, don't give up so damn easy. you think waxing is hard... you'll never survive.

 

[johntara04]

wow i'm new to forums but i've been browsing for months. my question is this: why do you even want to be a dentist? it doesn't seem like you know much about it if you think waxing is the greater part of your daily activities. to answer your question most of that is usually done in an offsite lab. most dentists will never touch a wax instrument after their 1st year dental occlusion class ever again... that job is left for the dental technician in most cases.

that being said, yes dentists diagnose and treat diseases, but as a general dentist its not normally a daily thing to say "next patient, i want to check you for diseases". its more like "next person with the cavity i need to fill!".

As a Dentist, all you do is treat and diagnose diseases. The most rampant disease in the world is perio. Your whole life is diagnosing and treating diseases. As a dentist (unless you do ortho) all you will be doing is diagnosing and treatin diseases.

now if a patient unknowingly comes in with bell's palsy, you can inform the patient of it and let him/her know why food keeps dribbling out of their mouth and such.

my next rant: like said above, waxing is not something you do a lot. its for learning tooth anatomy, contact points, etc. because these are important when making crowns, dentures, etc. you'll learn this in occlusion. hating this doesn't equate hating of the profession but DO REALIZE that if you aren't comfortable working with your hands, do us all a favor and turn your head to another field. i hate seeing dentists that are book smart with big clumsy ass hands. what good is that? do you realize that the amount of space you have to work in every day is about the size of a fist? do you want to be the one that CAUSES bell's palsy in a patient?


do some research, for God's sake shadow a dentist (and not just one kind), and work on your hand skills. this stuff can be learned but seeing some classmates work on their teeth gives me the shivers. also, while i'm at it, don't give up so damn easy. you think waxing is hard... you'll never survive.


By coming on this site and asking this question, isn't he doing some research? Besides a dentist, is there a better place than this to ask these questions?

.

 

[tinman831]

What a great first post! 😴

wow i'm new to forums but i've been browsing for months. my question is this: why do you even want to be a dentist? it doesn't seem like you know much about it if you think waxing is the greater part of your daily activities. to answer your question most of that is usually done in an offsite lab. most dentists will never touch a wax instrument after their 1st year dental occlusion class ever again... that job is left for the dental technician in most cases.

that being said, yes dentists diagnose and treat diseases, but as a general dentist its not normally a daily thing to say "next patient, i want to check you for diseases". its more like "next person with the cavity i need to fill!".

now if a patient unknowingly comes in with bell's palsy, you can inform the patient of it and let him/her know why food keeps dribbling out of their mouth and such.

my next rant: like said above, waxing is not something you do a lot. its for learning tooth anatomy, contact points, etc. because these are important when making crowns, dentures, etc. you'll learn this in occlusion. hating this doesn't equate hating of the profession but DO REALIZE that if you aren't comfortable working with your hands, do us all a favor and turn your head to another field. i hate seeing dentists that are book smart with big clumsy ass hands. what good is that? do you realize that the amount of space you have to work in every day is about the size of a fist? do you want to be the one that CAUSES bell's palsy in a patient?


do some research, for God's sake shadow a dentist (and not just one kind), and work on your hand skills. this stuff can be learned but seeing some classmates work on their teeth gives me the shivers. also, while i'm at it, don't give up so damn easy. you think waxing is hard... you'll never survive.

 

[QCkid]

wow i'm new to forums but i've been browsing for months. my question is this: why do you even want to be a dentist? it doesn't seem like you know much about it if you think waxing is the greater part of your daily activities. to answer your question most of that is usually done in an offsite lab. most dentists will never touch a wax instrument after their 1st year dental occlusion class ever again... that job is left for the dental technician in most cases.

that being said, yes dentists diagnose and treat diseases, but as a general dentist its not normally a daily thing to say "next patient, i want to check you for diseases". its more like "next person with the cavity i need to fill!".

now if a patient unknowingly comes in with bell's palsy, you can inform the patient of it and let him/her know why food keeps dribbling out of their mouth and such.

my next rant: like said above, waxing is not something you do a lot. its for learning tooth anatomy, contact points, etc. because these are important when making crowns, dentures, etc. you'll learn this in occlusion. hating this doesn't equate hating of the profession but DO REALIZE that if you aren't comfortable working with your hands, do us all a favor and turn your head to another field. i hate seeing dentists that are book smart with big clumsy ass hands. what good is that? do you realize that the amount of space you have to work in every day is about the size of a fist? do you want to be the one that CAUSES bell's palsy in a patient?


do some research, for God's sake shadow a dentist (and not just one kind), and work on your hand skills. this stuff can be learned but seeing some classmates work on their teeth gives me the shivers. also, while i'm at it, don't give up so damn easy. you think waxing is hard... you'll never survive.

Actually here at SC you need to wax throughout dental school. Sometimes patients have broken down teeth that you will prep for a crown. When that happens you have to wax up the tooth on the diagnostic caste in order to make a puddy for the provisional. When a patient wants a gold crown you have the option of sending it out or doing it in house. If you send it out then your looking at two weeks to get it back and try it in, if the margins aren't good then it (after a little cursing) goes back. If you do the crown in house then your in control of the whole process and can get it done a lot faster. We also often wax up teeth for diastema closures and for veeners to show the patient what it will look like.

Finally, their are a lot of General Dentists out their who do nothing but cosmetic stuff and they get to be know for what they do. A lot of these dentists want to control the morphology of their veneers and crowns and therefore due the wax-up themselves.

 

[TeethVader]

Waxing is something you should start feeling comfortable with time. It's not that I want to make generalizations or a preconceived pattern but in my class, the people who did very good in our waxing classes the first year, did excellent in subsequent restorative classes such as amalgam and bonded restorations.
I am one of those booksmart students, I do great in written exams but suck at clinical hand skills and have had to remediate every single class so far (Pre-Operative Preps and Restorations).
It all started when I first started waxing; I couldn't do a correct lateral incisor nor a molar for the life of me. Barely passing for me was a joy since my hand skill limitations did not account for an excellent grade.
If you truly want to be a dentist and are somewhat aware of your limitations, you are going to have to put the extra time buddy. I used to be in sim lab most of the time in order to gain a subpar grade when most of my classmates did not and passed clinical exams with flying colors.
Don't get into dental school thinking that just because you'll have to put in a considerable amount of extra time outside of class practicing you'll Ace a preparation exam. Sadly, it's not like studying like crazy for an exam and acing it since you'll know the material in and out, handskills test are totally different and are unfair in that respect.
Practice makes perfection and once again, you could probably have to put some extra time practicing to sharpen your handskills. I truly wish you good luck, I know I'll need it next trimester...🙁

 

[superchris147]

Waxing is something you should start feeling comfortable with time. It's not that I want to make generalizations or a preconceived pattern but in my class, the people who did very good in our waxing classes the first year, did excellent in subsequent restorative classes such as amalgam and bonded restorations.
I am one of those booksmart students, I do great in written exams but suck at clinical hand skills and have had to remediate every single class so far (Pre-Operative Preps and Restorations).
It all started when I first started waxing; I couldn't do a correct lateral incisor nor a molar for the life of me. Barely passing for me was a joy since my hand skill limitations did not account for an excellent grade.
If you truly want to be a dentist and are somewhat aware of your limitations, you are going to have to put the extra time buddy. I used to be in sim lab most of the time in order to gain a subpar grade when most of my classmates did not and passed clinical exams with flying colors.
Don't get into dental school thinking that just because you'll have to put in a considerable amount of extra time outside of class practicing you'll Ace a preparation exam. Sadly, it's not like studying like crazy for an exam and acing it since you'll know the material in and out, handskills test are totally different and are unfair in that respect.
Practice makes perfection and once again, you could probably have to put some extra time practicing to sharpen your handskills. I truly wish you good luck, I know I'll need it next trimester...🙁

awesome post

i agree with you on a lot of things, however, i don't think that if you are bad at wax ups you'll be horrible at preps

i think waxing is a good pre-clinical excercise/indicator because of its attention to detail and anatomy. it teaches you to be anal-retentive about minute detail which carries over to other things such as preps and other things as simple as custom trays.

i'm not great at waxing but i kind of enjoying doing it because its not very stressful, you sit down and work on it, if you make a mistake you can melt it and rebuild it, you don't have to start over

anyways, waxing is just like any other thing in dental school, you're gonna suck at it the first time you did it but you'll get better at it and its just gonna take time. so don't act like you're gonna find a way to get around it 😱

 

[DrJeff]

This thread hits the nail on the head! I bet that as a child growing up, riding a bike wasn't easy at first, but with practice just about all of us become good at it. Same with waxing a tooth, very few people are "naturals" at it, but with practice, the hand skills, the anatomical knowledge, the spacial conception of a tooth, and a few little tricks that are learned through experience you'll in all likelyhood become quite proficient at it.

Just remember, when you see a lab tech wax a molar to perfection in less than 5 minutes(as many of them will), they've done this 10's of thousands of times before, and I'd bet a sizeable chunk of money that most lab techs will "outwax" just about any d-school prof both in speed and quality of the wax up😉 😀

 

[surgeon_hopeful]

yeah seriously. At the OHSU thing, we saw a video of a guy do it, and he did the whole thing in 5 minutes!! I was like wtf? Is that a world record or something? Oh well, thanks for the help guys. I'm still a bit apprehensive though because that one guy says that dental school is pretty much all hands-skills, and book smarts don't account for that much. But meh. At least I still have 4 more years till I take the MCATs or DATs. I guess I should start studying for those instead of worrying about dental school, even though I might do medical stuff.

I'll post more if I have some more Qs from the OHSU thing

thanks again,
S_H

 

[taylort]

i don't think disliking waxing means you will dislike dentistry.

but i have noticed that those of my classmates who were bad at waxing do pretty shoddy restorative work too.

 

[Lesley]

yeah seriously. At the OHSU thing, we saw a video of a guy do it, and he did the whole thing in 5 minutes!! I was like wtf? Is that a world record or something? Oh well, thanks for the help guys. I'm still a bit apprehensive though because that one guy says that dental school is pretty much all hands-skills, and book smarts don't account for that much. But meh. At least I still have 4 more years till I take the MCATs or DATs. I guess I should start studying for those instead of worrying about dental school, even though I might do medical stuff.

I'll post more if I have some more Qs from the OHSU thing

thanks again,
S_H

S_H, You have lots of time ahead of you. Not only do dental students find waxing easier as they go through their clinics, but, as said here in this thread, they find it gets faster too. To be accepted to and to pass dental school, you will need book smarts, but at the end of the day when you are a dentist and you go to work, it involves putting you hands in the patient's mouth. I keep telling my patients when they find a way to let me take their tooth out of their mouth, do my work and put it back in, it will be a happy day for dentists and patients! This is not to be discouraging, but that's the way it is.

When students start dental school and are given a project, ie wax up a tooth, many students, me included, looked around at each other as if, "What the heck do they want me to do? Where do I start?" This is a very common reaction. Everyone pretty much starts looking at each other and starts to follow each others leads. Conceptually, the vast majority of new dental students have no idea where to start. But, you keep going to class, keep watching your instructors, peers, videos, SIMs and you get a better idea of what you're trying to accomplish. Once you know where you want to go, it's much easier to get there.

Don't rule dentistry out because you don't like waxing, but try to find out, over the next couple of years, what occupation would give you the most satisfaction. Best wishes and good luck in school, Lesley