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Any suggestions?
Visit a career office?
Visit a career office?
How to get a job in dental office?
- Thread starter blankguy
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Another alternative:
You can volunteer at a hospital/medical center with a dental department-- And get to see lots of interesting cases you might otherwise not see in a private dentist's office to boot.
Larger hospitals also have departments in multiple dental specialties, such as pediatric dentistry, oral surgery, etc.
HTH!
You can volunteer at a hospital/medical center with a dental department-- And get to see lots of interesting cases you might otherwise not see in a private dentist's office to boot.
Larger hospitals also have departments in multiple dental specialties, such as pediatric dentistry, oral surgery, etc.
HTH!
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As frequently, and for as long as, you enjoy doing it. All the adcoms will be interested in is that you've done enough of it to have a reasonably accurate picture of the profession you're working to enter.
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Maybe you should ask your own dentist if you can shadow him/her (or have them refer you to one of their colleagues).
For myself, I put in 1 four-hour session a week for about a year (which was more than enough time than I needed). I ended up volunteering a lot longer than necessary because I got along really well with the people at the office and it became enjoyable. I also ended up getting a really good letter of recommendation from the dentist as well (which I submitted with my application).
For myself, I put in 1 four-hour session a week for about a year (which was more than enough time than I needed). I ended up volunteering a lot longer than necessary because I got along really well with the people at the office and it became enjoyable. I also ended up getting a really good letter of recommendation from the dentist as well (which I submitted with my application).
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Which brings up the next questions. How to get a good recommendation from them and what do you do as a volunteer or shadowing? Do they give you menial tasks to do? Assist patients?
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Ask lots of questions and just make an effort to learn. Your dentist will probably want to share some of his/her knowledge with you. Definitely make sure not to be a pest with your questions by asking too many!
When you shadow, you just kind of stand there and watch them interact with patients and watch them do stuff in their lab in between patients. Sometimes, they will be explaining to you what they are doing as they work on patients to help you understand what is happening. Over time, after having watched a huge number of procedures, I started to understand the routine for most of the common dental procedures. I think that the amount of things that they let you do is a reflection of how much they trust you and like you...just definitely make an effort to be polite and nice (since time flies by so much faster when you have something to do). Even something like filling out the chart when my dentist was doing pocket depth probing was of fun.
In regards to asking you to assist patients, usually that's not necessary since there are already assistants to usually do all the suctioning, etc.. You can of course help here and there, though.
When you shadow, you just kind of stand there and watch them interact with patients and watch them do stuff in their lab in between patients. Sometimes, they will be explaining to you what they are doing as they work on patients to help you understand what is happening. Over time, after having watched a huge number of procedures, I started to understand the routine for most of the common dental procedures. I think that the amount of things that they let you do is a reflection of how much they trust you and like you...just definitely make an effort to be polite and nice (since time flies by so much faster when you have something to do). Even something like filling out the chart when my dentist was doing pocket depth probing was of fun.
In regards to asking you to assist patients, usually that's not necessary since there are already assistants to usually do all the suctioning, etc.. You can of course help here and there, though.
