How many shadowing hours do you recommend?

[Aschematic]

Hello everybody,

I am wondering how many shadowing hours I should get to have a sufficient understanding of dentistry. 50? 100? 200? What will be deemed acceptable by dental schools?

Thanks a lot!

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[dent2014]

There are some dental schools that require a certain amount of hours. (UOP, I think?). If it matters, I did approximately 250 hours.

Anyways, don't shadow to rack up the hours. Just focus on how you like the profession and if it's a good fit for you.

 

[dentalWorks]

50-100 hours.

anything more is just useless. Plus shadowing is a boring thing to do anyways ESSPECIALLY dental shadowing cause all you do is litterally stand there and watch someone stick thier hands in patients mouth. Sure you can ask "intellegant" questions here and there, but overall very boring process.

However, shadowing different specialties might be cool, I've only shadowed 2 dentists and both were General practice. I assume shadowing an OMFS / ortho / and a few otheres might have been cool.

 

[Predoctalk]

probably about one million

 

[doc toothache]

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=527523

 

[escape0510]

I totally agree with you guys that shadowing is really boring sometime because you cannot really do anything. The dentist that I have been shadowing asked me what he should write in his LOR. I understand his dilemma cuz i literally do nothing.

 

[doc toothache]

I totally agree with you guys that shadowing is really boring sometime because you cannot really do anything. The dentist that I have been shadowing asked me what he should write in his LOR. I understand his dilemma cuz i literally do nothing.

Maybe shadowing another career would do some good.

 

[dentalWorks]

Maybe shadowing another career would do some good.

huh? whats that supposed to mean?

 

[housie07]

huh? whats that supposed to mean?

I think it means that if you don't find watching someone scrape plaque off of some teenager's teeth for the 20th time that day wildly exciting, you should not be a dentist.

 

[pumpUup]

150+ hour to be safe.
VCU said this many many times, minimum is 150 hrs for VCU.

 

[escape0510]

Maybe shadowing another career would do some good.

what do you mean? I like observing procedures; however, standing in one spot and doing nothing is boring sometime. May be I shall shadowing different specialists to make it more interesting.

 

[dentalWorks]

I think it means that if you don't find watching someone scrape plaque off of some teenager's teeth for the 20th time that day wildly exciting, you should not be a dentist.

lol

Yeh that should be the standard for getting young folks to think about a career in dentistry. Although I believe you will start to see a greater decline in future dentists.... but thats okay, 50 years from now, there would be 100 dentists nation wide (2 per state).... Hey it could work out, look at how many senators we have per state

 

[SuperTank]

Maybe shadowing another career would do some good.

I want to shadow you, Doc Toothache. I bet you and your office staff laugh all day long!

 

[SuperTank]

what do you mean? I like observing procedures; however, standing in one spot and doing nothing is boring sometime. May be I shall shadowing different specialists to make it more interesting.

That's a pretty good idea. I shadowed an OMFS, a general dentist, an endodontist and an orthdontist. It was awesome, and never boring... although the endodontist seemed like HE was pretty bored...

 

[TeethandLakers]

100 hours seems to be the norm.