Manual dexterity

[wantVCUdental]

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Is there a way of knowing that you have the hands for dentistry before paying a lot of tuition to find out?

How do you guys practice to improve your motor skills?
thanks

 

[Ostracized]

I think that unless you have major motor problem, you will be fine. I suck at drawing, I have terrible hand writing, and I sucked at the Canadian DAT soap carving. Still, I am at least average in my class at restorative. Drilling requires practice, but becomes more and more comfortable.

 

[tinman831]

Is there a way of knowing that you have the hands for dentistry before paying a lot of tuition to find out?

There's no way of knowing that you have the hands for dentistry without performing dentistry first.

How do you guys practice to improve your motor skills?
thanks

You will get plenty of chances to practice while in dental school. Probably more than you really want. 🙂

 

[Daurang]

If you can brush and floss your teeth cleanly with relative ease, then you can do dentistry. I knew of many that flunked out due to academics but never due to labs.

 

[jay47]

If you can brush and floss your teeth cleanly with relative ease, then you can do dentistry. I knew of many that flunked out due to academics but never due to labs.

Although some of them probably should have, lol.

 

[KinKs]

Is there a way of knowing that you have the hands for dentistry before paying a lot of tuition to find out?

How do you guys practice to improve your motor skills?
thanks

One important thing to recognize is that dental school does not require a great level of artistry or manual accumen. Dental school IMO requires a level of competence.

Eg. In operative lab, I once compared my amalgam prep to a classmate's. Her prep was the ugliest prep I had ever laid eyes on. My prep was pretty with neat lines ect. However in a test, I would have failed and she would have passed. Although pretty, my prep did not have converging walls mesially and buccally - hers did. My pulpal floor though smooth was not flat like hers and worst of all, my prep was shallow in some areas while hers was uniformly 2mm.

Artistry requires manual dexterity, competency does not.

Competency is both necessary and sufficient to get through dental school. Artistry is neither.

 

[WilsonJing]

u can always carve a tooth out of wax. the result will determine 2 things ur natural hand skills and sharpness of your eye.

 

[scottyhoop]

I agree with everyone above...you'll get tons of practice in school. The first time I had to carve a tooth I almost died! It took me a couple weeks to get it passable. After having done it for a for a few months now I can do most of the teeth in the mouth pretty quickly and make them look half decent. Same is true with using a hand piece. First time was scary, but you get enough practice that it starts clicking pretty quickly.

Scotty

 

[CanadianDental]

I wrote the canadian DAT a few weeks ago, which requires a soap carving. Let me tell you that I sucked when I first started, and had no real training of my manual dexterity except for maybe a few video games (okay lots of video games 😀). After carving about 15 soaps, it become easy as pie and I could carve them accurately at a pretty fast pace (in the cDAT you need to look at the model, measure your soap, make your lines on the soap, and then carve - all within 30 minutes).

So I think that if you have descent manual dexterity to start out with (which almost everybody does) and you practise a hell of a lot you will get good at it.