Is my shadowing combination ok?

[hoylematt]

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Hey guys,

I shadowed a General Dentist for 30 hours, an orthodontist for 50, and an endodontist for 30 totally 110 hours. I assumed this was ok to have a combination, but are the 100+ hours recommended with a General Dentist only? If so........ time to freak out.

 

[ItalianPrincess]

i think you're fine, but thats my speculation not a fact...i think if a school requires 100 as long as you have a total of 100 you'll be ok

if you're really concerned just call up the schools to verify 🙂 usually secretaries are very nice to us panicky pre-dents

 

[MrBeans]

Personally, I think your shadowing experience is excellent.

You have a nice diverse array of observation with ample time committed to each.

It's getting kind of late to be considering adding additional experience anyway (if you plan to submit this cycle in the 1-3 mailing batches).

At any rate, I think you're fine!

 

[sfoksn]

How did you manage to watch ortho for that long?!

I left after 20 hours and I was seriously pushing myself to stay due to boredom.

What did you observe for 50 hours anyways? Just curious, not attacking you 🙂

 

[hoylematt]

It was my first shadowing experience, so i was all excited about it. He had this really laid back office and included me in about everything that i could possible see. Some of the stuff that made it not so boring i guess:

-Gave me an tutorial start to finish at how he prepares patients for Invis-align. From Xrays to molds to the computer software. One of the coolest things in the process was refinement--how each case is different depending on if their teeth are following the plan or not.

-Taught me a lot about the "ortho-pipeline" or what the different stages are so that when patients came in I could see where they were on the pipeline.

-actually let me help him repair some broken retainers in the lab in the back which was cool because I was just shadowing him.

-And a bunch of other techniques stuff that I took a ton of good notes on--I actually brought a notebook with me.

-I was included in all of the staff meetings so that I could see how an office is run, from building the business, to hiring and random stuff that was actually really interesting.

To be honest there were days that were pretty slow, and not much to look at--but the majority of the time my experience was awesome. I saw treatments on 6 year olds, and 88 year olds which I didn't even know was possible in an ortho office. I think what made a huge difference was that the Ortho was a family friend and was super interested in helping and making the experience a fun one. 😀

 

[DrReo]

The only one schools really care about is GP. The most I remember schools requiring proof of hours was 30. double check the required number and if you're safe, don't worry.