How are you documenting your shadowing hours?

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cariesarebad

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I know this is silly, but how are you guys documenting your hours for schools? Are you just going in with a paper that says "I certify that blah blah has shadowed me for X hours" signed the doctor?
 
The only school I applied to that required documentation (Ohio state) has a form on their website to use. Most just take your word. Check their website to see if you need documentation.
 
It says they do but doesn't give a form so I'm not really sure what they want.
 
Are you shadowing and getting credit at your school? Or just contacted the dentist. I did both. I got credit hours for school where I had to write a journal, and I also did it independently.

Independently I would suggest keeping a log of all your hours, and then toward the end of your shadowing experiences you might want to ask for a recommendation. Many schools require a recommendation from a dentists, and others suggest it. Often in the recommendation the dentist will write something to the affect that you completed over "blank " many of hours in his practice.
 
The only school I applied to that required documantation was Tufts. I had my dentist write me an LOR which included the number of hours I had shadowed with him. I had the LOR sent to all my schools even if they didn't require it specifically. This seemed to work out just fine.
 
The only school I applied to that required documantation was Tufts. I had my dentist write me an LOR which included the number of hours I had shadowed with him. I had the LOR sent to all my schools even if they didn't require it specifically. This seemed to work out just fine.

That's the best way. Have the LOR from dentist include when you started volunteering/shadowing. That's the way I did it.
 
LLU has you fill out their form with signatures from each dentist. Funny they are the only school to which I applied that didn't believe me. BTW, my dentist said some Calif. school was calling to verify my shadowing but she didn't remember which school it was. My recommendation is to keep track of your hours on paper just in case. I've done some many that I forgot!
 
1. letter from dentist
2. excel the info yourself- your doc has better things to do than keep track of when you came in
3. write a journal entry everyday you shadow. this is invaluable when you need to remember what you have seen and when you need to write a kick-a$$ personal statement. i have about 20 pages which i read through before each of my interviews. makes it easy when they ask, "what have u seen?"
 
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