The Characteristics of Effective Dental Assistants: Competence
The Characteristics of Effective Dental Assistants: Competence
Though you may not need any formal training in dental school to be able to work as a dental assistant, you must be a competant worker in order to do the job right. Competence is an important skill to have because working as an assistant to a doctor requires more than basic knowledge.
Dentists have to go to school for years in order to be able to learn how to do basic and surgical procedures correctly. There are many different types of procedures that can be done in a dental office at any given time and each procedure requires a different sent of tools. As a dental assistant part of the job description will be to prepare the trays and the tools that go on the trays just by reading what the procedure will be on the Dentist's schedule.
Of course the dental assistant can learn what goes on the trays simply by memorizing what the tools look like by sight, but it is quite a different story when the dentist is telling you what he needs off of the tray during the procedure and he is calling the tool by the name he learned in dental school.
As a dental assistant you will be responsible for learning the names of the tools and what they are used for in order to be able to better facilitate the Dentist so the procedure can run smoothly. If the Dentist asks you for a specific tool your first day on the job and you have no idea what he is talking about you will not be able to hand him the tools in a timely fashion if he has to stop and describe the tool to you while he is staring into the patients mouth with both hands occupied.
A dental assistant has to take the initiative to pick up a book of dentistry and learn the medical terms he will be using during the procedures and what the tools are called in order to effectively communicate with the Dentist and the patient he is working with. Competence in dentistry is key.