I graduated May 2015 and began working as a part time dental assistant in July of 2015 which I still do today. While in undergrad I shadowed an oral surgeon and pediatric dentist for a day each but didn't get fully exposed to dentistry until I started my job at a nearby small general dentistry practice right after I graduated with my bachelors. I'm applying this June/July and I'm curious how dental schools view actual work experience versus shadowing exposure. As an assistant I feel like I have been able to participate is much more than I would have if I had just been simply shadowing. Do dental schools look more favorably/unfavorably towards actual work experience over shadowing experience or are the two interchangeable to admissions? Technically I have ~16 hours shadowing and ~800+ hours dental assisting...
Working as a dental assistant vs. shadowing
- Thread starter WindKP
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Assisting > shadowing. Having actual EXPERIENCE puts you leaps ahead of somebody who stood in the corner and asked a few questions. When I started to assist it immediately changed the way I looked at things. The AADSAS application asks for "Dentistry/Shadowing Experiences". It isn't limited to just shadowing; you can put down "work".
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Of course it would have been beneficial if you did more shadowing in undergrad but the dental assisting experience more than makes up for it. Any type of dental experience will look good but it will make you stand out that you did assisting.
That's good to hear! I will actually be quitting my dental job sometime in June as I'm more needed full time as a bookkeeper at my dad's company which also pays better. Figured once I'm around the 1000 hour mark its not totally necessary to stay at the dental office while I spend the next 14 months working and saving money for school.
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