 Hello everybody, Andrew Mayesca here with Dental Tutoring. So this video will be about what dental assisting students need to know before they start working in an office. And also things that are good to know to make you feel more confident and that you will realize you're not alone. I took dental assisting when I was in my early 20s. Actually, no, sorry. I took dental assisting when I was 19, I think maybe 18 and I was a dental assistant by the time I was in my early 20s. So 19 or 20 even. So, but it's funny, I remember it like it was yesterday. It does happen sometimes the offices where I work, I just have to quickly help out a dental assistant or they're looking for an instrument and I can kind of help them look because I know what all of the instruments are. And it just, it does help a lot to have previous dental assisting experience. Even if you're going through to be a dental hygienist, if you have previous dental assisting experience, it is so helpful, it is so helpful. It will help you in so many ways and it will make you a great asset to the office. But what I want to tell you number one is that and I don't know why this is, but in school, they don't really teach you guys the instruments and the procedures. I mean, they do a little bit, but I remember when I was a dental assistant, even a dental assisting student and I was doing my co-op, I remember just feeling so lost and hoping, I hope they don't want me to assist. I hope I can just watch because I feel like I don't know what anything is or you do know what things are, but you don't really know the steps that you will need them. But the good news is you will learn fast and it's very, very easy. Another thing to make notice, every dentist is different and every dentist will want different instruments. Their steps may be a little bit different and in the dental office, you won't all use the same materials, even something like the prime and the bond. Some have prime and bond mixed in, some have a separate primer, some have a separate bond, some you have to air dry the primer, some you don't. So just kind of little things like that, but your dentist will tell you what to do. Even talking about air drying, prime and bond, sometimes the dentist will want to do it themselves, sometimes the dentist will have you air dry for them. So all of that, you kind of learn on the job. So don't feel like you have to start day one and know all of that stuff. The good news is again too, is that when you're a new dental assistant, the office expects you to not know a lot, as silly as that sounds, but they expect to have to train you on a lot of things. So they're perfectly fine. If you're kind of sitting there like, okay, can you just tell me what instrument to pass you and I would be happy to pass it to you? So don't feel like you have to be two steps ahead yet. Eventually, yes, you will be and I am here to teach you guys all how to do that, but you will become so good and so valuable to that practice. It will be the easiest thing ever. The hard part will be dealing with crazy patients, okay? That's the hardest part, because I find as a dental assistant, you pretty much have to deal with those crazy patients, you know, that night guard impression that you have to take. Well, nobody else is going to take that impression except for the dental assistants. The dentist won't even do it. Sorry guys, I got something on my lip, don't I? I just put on lip gloss and I kind of feel like, there we go. Sorry, I'm only human. I didn't want to just leave it there because I'm sure all of you guys can see that too and that's probably very distracting. But okay, I'm back. But yeah, like honestly, things like taking impressions. As a dental hygienist, I hate taking them. So I will do whatever I can to not take those darn impressions. I will say, hey, the assistant's not doing anything. How about I move you into the assistant's chair? She would love to take those impressions for you. You know, the dentist will not be taking those alternate impressions. You have to take those impressions. So you will be the one having to do a lot. But that I would have to say is the big thing. Don't think you have to be two steps ahead. You know, think of all of the different procedures like the root canal, the composite, amalgam, a crown prep, a bridge prep, cementing a crown, even just something as simple as alginate impressions. Don't expect, don't think that they're expecting you to know everything right away. If you pass them the bond instead of the primer, they're not going to get upset. If you, you know, pass them the vurnisher instead of the condenser, they're not going to get upset. But you will learn quite quickly. And it will probably take a week or two. Like, okay, this dentist likes to use the bulb vurnisher more than the condenser. Or, oh, this dentist uses the condenser for pretty much the whole filling, but the last part, they like to use the bulb vurnisher. You know, things like that you will learn. So don't think you have to be perfect. If you've never worked in a dental office before, that will be the hardest part, is to just kind of get a feel for how the office works. I have known many new dental assistants that I can tell they're nervous as heck, even something as simple as just getting the patient. You know, they're not used to having to go out into the waiting room. Everyone's staring at you, literally. You have to call out the patient's name, the patient comes with you. That may seem like a very simple thing, or maybe not. For me, that's just something that happens. It's very, very simple. But if you're new, even that simple task may seem very daunting to you. You're not alone. You will get used to it. You won't even think about it. Even something like, oh, I hope the patient doesn't ask me any questions because I don't know what I'm doing still. You know, they will ask you questions. You will come into difficult scenarios where let's say you're telling the patient, oh, you are due for your checkup x-rays today. I see that you didn't have them done at your last cleaning. We are doing a filling for you today, but the dentist did ask me to take those checkup x-rays for you first because he or she's worried there may be some extra cavities in between the teeth. What if the patient says to you, I don't want them? You might be thinking, uh, well, too bad. You have to have them. Or you may be thinking, oh, okay, never mind then. And then you go tell the dentist, well, the patient didn't want x-rays, so I didn't take them. You know, how do you deal with those situations? It may seem obvious to somebody who's been working in a dental office for months, years, but it's not so obvious if you've never worked in a dental office before. So I will teach you guys those situations too. But for the x-rays, you know, you will have patients say no. That's okay. What I do is I might say something like, oh, is there a reason why you don't want us to take them? They might say something like, oh, well, I don't really have time. Well, that's a lousy excuse. So I will say to them, well, it just takes about 20 seconds and this will help us diagnose to make sure that we're not missing anything. Then they might say, oh, okay, then who knows? Or they might tell you the real answer, like, well, actually, it's not about the time. I just don't want x-rays done because I don't like too many x-rays. You know, fair enough, that's okay, but I will still take it a step further and tell the patient, okay, I completely understand that is okay, but just so you know, we might be missing a cavity and we don't want that to get larger. We would only take the checkup x-rays if we need them. We don't take them every year, every six months. We do not do that. I see for you, we took the checkup x-rays three years ago. So that's just the main reason why she wanted us to take them today. If we don't see anything today, then we are probably okay to wait another three years. So you're not forcing them, but you're just letting them know why you want to take them. At that point, though, if they still say no, no means no, say, okay, you know what? I completely understand, you know, sign here saying that you understand we can't diagnose and that we might be missing some areas. Not all offices have them sign something. So check with your office policies, but don't force the patient to have x-rays done, but also don't be the one to say, oh, oh well, okay, you know, because x-rays are important. So, but again, that depends on the office too. You will learn what your office does and office policies. Another example would be if the patient shows up 30 minutes late, you might not see them or the dentist might expect you to see them too bad, so sad, no matter what, and then you're like 40 minutes behind for the rest of the day, you will start to learn that over time. A little trick as a dental assistant, that just makes you look one step ahead, I think, and not all offices do that is to walk the patient out. So after their procedure, I do always say to them, oh, do you have any questions? Because the dentist is probably still in that room, and they might, they might have questions. So I sit them up, I take off the bib, I say, do you have any questions about anything? So you're not just sitting them up and saying, okay, bye, see you later. But if they don't have questions, walk them out into the waiting room. I always tell the patients to have a seat and that the receptionist will call them up when they have their chart to pay. It depends on the office. If there's only one receptionist, then yes, have the patient have a seat because perhaps they're seeing other patients or they're just not ready for that patient yet. Some offices though, if there's more than one receptionist, they want you to bring the patient to them so that they don't have to call the patient's name. So you will learn these things over time. As an assistant, you may be in charge of putting the codes through so that the receptionist doesn't have to look in the chart to see what you did that day, but you might be responsible for putting the codes through. As a new assistant, you might not know the codes. So the dentist will probably tell you what codes to put through and then you have to put them in the computer or in the chart. Again, you kind of learn those things depending on the office. So if you guys have questions, let me know. Comment below and if you haven't yet, make sure to hit subscribe to my channel because I just love seeing all of the different comments, all of the different questions and it helps me to know who's watching and what type of videos to upload because if you guys are like me, you always are thinking about dental, talking about it. I love it. But I'm going to upload a video shortly of going through some of the common dental assisting procedures and the step by step. So you guys can kind of be 10 steps ahead to begin with. I don't expect you guys to memorize all of the different steps, but it will help to see what things look like. So if the dentist says, oh, can you pass me the ball burnisher? A new assistant might forget what that is. So I'm going to show you guys what everything looks like. So that will be in another video. And if you guys need more help, if you're still a student in school, feel free to check out the Dental Assisting and Board Exam Prep Academy because I do offer full tutoring for the Dental Assisting Board Exam where we go through mock exams, case studies, modules. There is tutoring twice a month, so you will pass your exam. If you're still a student and not quite thinking about the office just yet. So thank you guys so much for watching. Make sure to comment if you have any questions because then that kind of helps me know what types of videos to upload. So thank you guys for watching. Make sure to hit subscribe to see when the new videos come out because I do do them at least once a week, if not more. Thank you guys, have a wonderful Sunday because it's Sunday today, it's getting dark out actually because it was raining all day, but I hope you guys have a nice weekend. Thank you, bye.