 Hello everybody, Andrea Mayeski here with Dental Tutoring. So I've been in a dental profession since I was 19-20, so a while now I'm now in my 30s. So I'm going to talk to you guys about my good qualities as a dental hygienist and maybe my not-so-good qualities, I guess, depending on how you look at it, because nobody's perfect. I find a lot of us think that the more experience we have, we're not supposed to make mistakes, we're supposed to be perfect, we're supposed to just be the best ever. But in any occupation, you're not going to be perfect. So stop beating yourself up if you miss Calculus one day, if you're behind, if you come home and you're like, I quit, that was the worst day ever, it happens. But let me tell you guys about my kind of personal qualities, I guess. So I'd say the best quality I had, and this isn't me just tooting my own horn here. This is from what other people tell me. So this is from feedback that I have gotten in the past, because I don't tend to think of myself as good qualities, bad qualities, I'm just me. I'm just me. I don't really know what my good or bad qualities are unless I really think about it and take feedback from patients and offices that I've worked for. So my best quality would have to be, from what I'm told, is that I can make any patient feel comfortable. I can make any patient feel comfortable and kind of along the same lines. I come to the office every day happy, I leave the bad stuff that might be happening in my life behind. I'm known to never be in a bad mood. I'm known to always have a positive attitude. And those personality traits are great for a dental professional because work is hard. We will be dealing with patients who have had bad days. We will be dealing with patients who are difficult to work with. We will be dealing with patients who are pissed off because we're five minutes behind that things just aren't going their way. But it's so important to always maintain that calm, collective attitude. Always be positive about things even if you miss lunch, even if you miss a break because you're 20 minutes behind. Even if you're dealing with a lousy staff member, you know, you get the idea, a positive attitude will go a long way. And I'm good with patients. Again, that's what people tell me. I can make any patient feel comfortable. There are patients that don't like me for whatever reason, but it's not often. You know, you will come across people in your career where it seems every single patient doesn't like them. Or there's a lot of patients that say, okay, I don't want to see this person again. There's usually a reason for it. Not all the time. No. But there's usually a reason for it. And my track record with patients not wanting to see me is very minimal. So that's good for any office too, right? Because you don't want to hire somebody and then have no patients want to see them because they're yelling at them for not brushing, for not doing what they're supposed to do. They're always 45 minutes behind or they're too fast, things like that. So that would have to be a good quality of mind. So if this sounds like you, you have a positive attitude and you're good with people, you will go far because I don't feel that that's something you can teach. You can teach a hygienist, you can teach an assistant how to do hygiene things and assisting things, but you can't teach somebody to have a positive attitude. You either have a good attitude or you have a lousy attitude. We're all thinking about somebody who has a lousy attitude and makes the workplace horrible. So it's great to have a positive attitude. But mixing it up, something that I can definitely work on and that is a bad quality of me is that I'm always behind. I'm not talking half an hour, but I'm talking, I'm usually 10 minutes behind, minimum, 10 to 15 minutes. That's something that I'm personally trying to work on, but sometimes that can't be helped. If I'm waiting for the dentist for 10 minutes, of course I'm going to be behind, right? But I'm still behind. You know, I'm expected, as a hygienist, you are always expected to make up that time, even if it's not your fault. Even if a patient is sitting in your chair, she's crying in your arms, basically, because you've known her for a long time, him, whoever, because her aunt passed away. Her mom passed away. You are going to be behind. And I don't nip the appointment in the bud, okay? Meaning if a patient's talking to me about something, I'm not going to say to them, okay, great, can we carry on with this next time? Because I'm 10 minutes behind and my boss is going to get mad. So I don't do that. I'm behind because patients need me a lot of the time. You know, I'm not one to rush a patient out. If I'm done the cleaning, I sit them up, ask if they have questions, which I do always. And they have questions, yet I have maybe two minutes to talk to them. I'm not going to rush them. I talk to them as if they have an hour with me. I'm not going to rush them. That's a bad quality, yes, because nobody likes a hygienist that's behind. But I also don't see it as a horrible quality because patients know that when they come in, they can talk to me. They don't have to feel rushed. Well, sorry guys, my hair sometimes drives me crazy. You probably hear me say that in a lot of videos. Sorry guys. Oh, I do have a little clip that I kind of forgot about to put my hair back like this. Okay, there's always a little piece. Anyways, I know you guys don't care, but okay, it looks kind of better, right? Anyways, so a patient isn't going to complain about you because you took too much time with them and because you cared and because you listened. They complain and they don't come back when they feel rushed. Now they will complain when you keep them waiting, so I do keep patients waiting. But I will always say to them, sorry to keep you waiting. Sorry, I kind of lost my train of thought here. Sorry, I say sorry to keep you waiting. My last patient just needed a little bit more, so it just took me longer. Or I might say my last patient arrived 20 minutes late. I apologize, but they were leaving on vacation, so I didn't want to not see them. You can make stuff up. I do all the time. Often, not often, but sometimes I say sorry. If a patient's obviously upset for no reason, but they're obviously upset and causing a stink about it, then I will say to them, you know what? Sorry to keep you waiting. I can see you're upset. We can revoke you. I do. I say that. Or I might say sorry to keep you waiting. We actually had a medical emergency in the office and we couldn't, you know, these things happen. This is healthcare. So depending on how rude the patient is or kind of like that, then I'll kind of mix things up a little bit. But that is definitely a bad quality of mine. Another good quality is I'm comfortable taking any X-rays. If you're a new hygienist or a new assistant watching this, you're probably thinking, oh, I can't wait to get to that point. Because I remember being a new dental assistant specifically and being so nervous any time I had to take a PA. Bite wings, yeah, I never loved taking X-rays because I was just worried about taking a bad X-ray. Bite wings I was always okay with because we had the RIN kits back then and we still do, thankfully. But PAs, any time I had to take a PA or take a PA with a root canal. So as we're doing the root canal procedure, you take a couple X-rays, that was always hard for me because you have to get the certain angle to get around the clamp. That would always make me so nervous. Seriously, I hated taking X-rays. Now I can take anything, no problem. So that's a good quality with me. If they need X-rays, I have no problem taking them. It seems I always get the patients who need X-rays, just FYI. I don't know. The last hygienist just never takes X-rays. I have no idea. Yet when I'm in the chair, the dentist always wants X-rays, but I'm like, sure, no problem. Probably why I'm behind, actually. I never thought about that. I'm the one always taking the X-rays. I'm going to mention that at our next staff meeting. But yeah, so I have no problem taking any X-rays. If an assistant is having a tough time, I will help her, no questions asked. So that's a good quality. Another bad quality, maybe, depending on how you look at it, is I do not push treatment of any kind. So if a patient comes in, I say you're due for your checkup X-rays today, and they say, no, thank you. I don't really want them. I will say to them, well, just so you know, we might not be able to diagnose everything. How about we have a good look in there? I'll do the cleaning. If we still need X-rays after that, if there's a certain tooth that she wants to see, let's take the X-rays, but we'll let you know. But I will not go, oh, you know what? Sorry, we really have to take those X-rays. It's been three years. I know you're saying, no, but we have to take them. No, you still don't want to take them, but we have to take them. So I don't push treatment. I might be too lenient sometimes, especially with kids. Like if I see a child in my chair who's giving me a hard time, they're not opening, closing, you know, sitting still, I will not see them. I'll just say, okay, well, you're having a tough time today. Let's just wait till next time. You know, you're 10 years old. This isn't difficult, but you're obviously, you're, excuse me, you're obviously having a tough time. So let's just rebook. I mean, I don't say it like that. Like I say it nicer and more professionally, more professional, but I don't push treatment. Now I can see that not being a good thing for a child because you do have to be firm, right? But how I see it is they book us half an hour for children. I don't have time to talk to them for 10 minutes about why they should have their tooth cleaned. You can rebook, come back another time. But that's just my personal opinion. I'm not saying that's right, but that's why that's a bad quality of mine is that I don't push treatment. Another example would be if the dentist is saying, oh, you know what, you need crowns on these two teeth. You can talk to us afterwards, book the appointment when you're ready. You do need those two crowns. And then the patient might say to me, do I really need those two crowns because I'm really tight with money. Can I give it like another year or so? So I kind of treat it like I'm almost like a mechanic where I'm going to let somebody know how much longer they have for that car. If I say, well, yes, you could wait a year, but then it's gonna be like $5,000 because you're going to lose the tooth. You're gonna need an implant, you know, things like that, like a car, right? Maintain it. So I might say to them, well, yes, this tooth does need a crown just so you know, there's a large silver filling in here, but it does look pretty solid, knock on wood. Just so you know, anything can happen to it any time. I don't promise, but for now, you could actually wait on it, but start saving up the money because you will be needing a crown sooner rather than later. But I'm not going to say, no, sorry, you need that crown like tomorrow, like right away. You know, that might be true, but I always try to give them options. So I always give them options. I tell them, well, this is what can happen if you don't crown that tooth at all and leave it alone. This is what happens if maybe you just want to repair that tooth for now, do an M-O-D, you know, and wait for the crown, but then this is what would happen if you had the crown right away. You will save that tooth and it will be amazing, you know? So I give them options, but again, that might not be a good thing for all offices. They might want a pushy hygienist. They might want a hygienist who will just look at their insurance coverage and recommend everything possible. That is good for them, of course. If they don't need a crown, they don't need a crown. I'm not saying that a dentist would suggest that if they didn't need one, but sometimes you don't need it like yesterday. You can wait. I'm not a dentist, so let me just, because I can see a lot of you guys probably thinking, ooh, she doesn't know, she's not a dentist. I have a lot of experience. I like to think I have a pretty good idea, but I do let my patients know. I'm not a dentist. This is just my opinion from what I've seen. If it was my mouth, this is what I would do. So I do say that a lot. Let's see, what else can I say? Good qualities. I take a lot of courses. So if I don't know something I find out, I'm kind of like the walking encyclopedia of the office or like the walking Google. Yeah, literally. If somebody has a question, I usually know the answer. You know, oh, Andrea, what's, let me think of an example here. What class of indicators need to go in this pouch? Or like, what do we do if a spore test broke? You know, things like that. So I just kind of know a little bit of everything. So that's kind of nice for offices too. Plus I am a restorative hygienist. So that is really, really good for offices. If patients come in with chipped teeth, I can help out. An emergency, I can do like a temporary filling, you know, things like that. So that helps. I probably should have made a list before I did this video. Sorry guys, but you get the idea. Actually something that I will mention that helps me be a better hygienist is at the beginning of the day I do always look through all of my charts. So I know what the patient had done at their last appointment, what they need and things that I'll talk to them about if there's any outstanding treatment. And I will also organize all of my trays for at least half of the day because you usually only have enough trays for like four patients, four or five patients maybe. So I will organize all of my trays so that I can just take it, put it in the room and that's it. So I'm not as behind. So yeah, if you guys have any more questions please do not hesitate to let me know. Make sure to click subscribe because I do upload the videos often now. And I do try to check the comments often too. I apologize if I can't get back to you guys right away but I am in the habit of now checking them every couple of weeks at nighttime usually because I'm pretty busy but I love to see everybody's comments. So please keep commenting. I love that so much. Thank you guys. And if there's a video that you have in mind just please let me know. Thank you guys for watching and I'll see you guys very, very soon.