My first week in dentistry school was a blur. Between finding the right classes, lugging around giant textbooks, and getting well and truly lost in the library, it barely felt like I did any actual learning about anything relating to dentistry. To add to the confusion about whether or not I had actually made it to dentistry school, my first meeting with my advisor involved quite the curveball. She asked me to think of all the other skills required to become a successful dentist – outside of dental knowledge – and told me to come up with an independent study plan for these skills.
Eh?
It took me a while to grasp what she meant. For the rest of the day I was convinced I had a made a huge mistake in applying to be a dentist. I didn’t even understand the first assignment, how could this possibly end well for me? I finally marched back to her office and told her I had no idea what she meant. Lucky for me, she laughed and told me to take a seat rather than asking me to return my student ID and showing me the door.
“You don’t train to be a dentist,” she said. “You learn to be a dentist, and train to run a dental practice”. Still scratching my head, she talked me through an average day in the life of a dentist. She outlined how I would need to learn to deal with patients, bossy, demanding and sometimes scared patients. She told me how I would need to learn to work with dental nurses. How I would need to know how to instruct a treatment coordinator. I would need to always be learning new skills and looking for new ways to make my patients feel better about their visit. I finally got the assignment.
I started making a list of the other things that dentists do that I would need to learn about. Communication. Using complex computer systems. Organisation. Scheduling. Diplomacy. Even upselling. These were all things that will come in handy one day, but won’t necessarily be taught on my course.
During my first internship, I shadowed a dental implant treatment coordinator with my local Lymm dentist. Some days I didn’t even see a patient, but there was always so much going on the in background. I usually went home in a bad mood on these days, but I now see why this experience was invaluable. For every second spent with a patient, there are 2 seconds spent behind the scenes that are just as valuable.
It’s going to be quite the journey, but I’m excited to be able to share it here!