A Typical Day

A dental assistant sets up surgeries, makes sure the patient is comfortable, helps the dentist during a procedure, and cleans up instruments multiple times a day.

Top 3 Perks

1)Part time work is available

2) Interacting with co-workers

3) Preventing patients pain by teaching them proper dental techniques is rewarding

Job Culture

Indoors, cleaning dental equipment, making patients feel relaxed, taking x-rays, organizing instruments, operating equipment

My Experience

After job shadowing a dentist and a periodontist I became interested in their work so I decided to job shadow a dental assistant. A dental assistant basically helps out the dentist or periodontist during surgery, preps the surgery, and cleans up. I job shadowed an assistant who helps the dentist out during fillings and other procedures throughout the day. Although this job seems fairly straight forward there is a lot of thought that she must put into it. Although surgery seems complex and technical I was really surprised how complex the cleanup was. For example, everything in the operating room has to be wiped off counter clockwise to make sure you don’t miss anything. Then all the equipment is taken to the sterile room and is first hand washed, which was gross since blood was all over the utensils. After hand washing, the equipment is placed in a cleaning bath for 5-10 minutes and then a very complicated sterilizing machine for another 10 minutes. After it is all clean she had to prep for the next surgery by taking out the right equipment and prepping the patient. When prepping a patient she may be taking x-rays or just talking to the patient to make them feel relaxed and comfortable before the dentist comes in.

Although it seems repetitive it’s a good job since you are pretty well doing dentistry without spending all the years in school, plus you get to operate the suctioning device which must be fun.

Requirements

1) Complete high school

2) Complete a 1 year dental assistant program at a college

Skills Needed

Organization, people skills, near vision, dexterous

The Field

- The dentistry industry is using computers more often so dental assistants will have to learn computer skills

– Most dental assistants move on to become dental hygienists or denturism