Worked for parent as Dental Assistant during COVID. Clinical?

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shootbigshootbigger

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At the beginning of the pandemic, my parent's dental assistant left, and they could not find anyone to work at that time. I became their uncertified part-time dental assistant for a year (~400 hours) to help out, and I was paid.
This experience taught me a lot about healthcare and building patient relationships, and I assisted in all procedures. I also wanted to briefly talk about it at the beginning of my personal statement because it did drive me toward healthcare.
I have ~500 hours of clinical volunteering beyond this in a traditional clinical setting with another 500 projected.

Would it look bad to include this as clinical work experience?
Is it weird to say that I was paid to work for my parent?
And I know whether being a dental assistant is considered clinical is contested.

Thank you!

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you were quite literally face to face with patients. I've seen others who've done similar work with a parent who is a dentist and my question at interview has been "why medicine and not dentistry?"

Developing a good "bedside" manner, issues around insurance, patients' avoidance of care out of fear until problems are very severe, all of those things seem to be common to both medicine and dentistry.

I would put it on the application as "employment, clinical" without reservations.
 
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