 Hello everybody, Andrew Maeski here with Dental Tutoring. So are you a new dental hygienist or a new dental assistant? You might be thinking, oh, I am so new. I don't know how to get started, but how can I act with patients so they don't necessarily know that I'm brand new and I'm nervous. So how to appear confident when you might not be? And honestly, you guys, this is a normal, you know, nervous thinking to have. Okay, we have all been there. We have all done that. When I became a dental assistant, I started working right away, actually. I was very nervous because I had never been in a dental office before, like on the back end. And when you're in school and you go through internships, well, you do learn it hopefully a lot there too. And that did help me a ton, but I still was not very confident at all because how can I be? But how can you act confident? Okay, there's a couple of things that just simply helps. Okay, keep in mind, people understand, not patients, but you know, dentists, staff understand you are new. They are assuming you will be nervous, but it's worse to act nervous. It is worse to just keep on saying, I'm new, I'm new, I'm new, I'm nervous. Don't say things like that, okay? Act confident because you should be. You know, I mean, maybe not confident because that can take time, right? But you have been through so much. Either dental assisting, dental hygiene, it doesn't matter, you have been through so much. You have seen patients. Now it's time to do what you're made to do. It took me probably two weeks to feel comfortable, I must say, but it can take me longer to feel comfortable if I'm doing something for the first time because I personally don't like change. But it took me two weeks, even for assisting too, to just feel comfortable that, okay, patients don't necessarily know that I'm new. I am acting as if I've been here forever. That's what they want to do. So rule number one is don't say I'm so nervous. Don't say I'm new. Don't say this is my first day. Don't say anything like that. You might have patients say to you, oh, I don't think I've ever seen you before. How long have you been here? And you don't want to lie and say, oh, I've been here for like 10 years. Kind of change the subject. That's what I would do. And say, oh, I don't think I've seen you here either. I'm typically here Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. So that's probably why I haven't seen you before. If for some reason they're like, oh, well, are you new here? Say yes, I'm new here, but I have two years of dental experience, depending on how long it took you to go through school. That's true, right? When I took dental assisting, it took me a year. Well, actually it took me 11 months, but I would just tell people a year for dental hygiene in total since I took the program twice. Yes, I took the dental hygiene program twice because the first time I took the program, my school shut down. We were three weeks away from graduating, but that's another video for another day, but that took me about four years. So even if I've been to an office for the first time and even thinking, okay, what would I say if I was brand new? I would say, but I have two years dental experience. I have four years dental experience, but yes, I am new here. It is so nice to meet you. I hope to see you again, something like that, right? I still get that a lot when I still work in a dental office because I'm Tuesdays and Thursdays in one place and Friday's another place. Oh, are you new here? And I go, oh, wow, well, thank you. Well, I have 14 years experience, almost 15, but I don't know, I don't think I've seen you before because just so you know, some patients can be quite rude if I can say that. Not a lot of them, like maybe 2% of them, so that's not a lot, but some patients can be quite rude, like, oh, I don't want somebody new that has happened to me probably once or twice. But usually patients just want to know, like, oh, have you been here before? I haven't seen you. Oh, are you the dental assistant? Are you the dental hygienist? You know, because people just don't know. But that's one way to act confident. Don't hesitate to ask questions ever to the staff, but don't ask so many questions where you're annoying. I was with the dental assistant ones where she was assisting the dentist and she would literally ask questions about everything, like, oh, why are you using that instrument? In school, we use this one. Or, oh, why did you want me to pass you this? I've never seen this material before. Can you talk about it a little bit? That's too many questions. There's no harm asking questions like, oh, I'm not sure where that is. Let me go get somebody to help me. Or do you know where that is? Or if you don't, just get somebody to help. You know, that's okay. Or after the patient has left, don't hesitate to ask. Like, oh, was there anything that I could have done better? Or, well, you know, even then, I don't like saying that because it kind of implies you did something wrong, which maybe you didn't. But maybe say, oh, you know, I had a harder time finding the one instrument. Hope that was okay with you. Thank you for your patience. Would you like another assistant to kind of help me for the next procedure so I don't slow you down too much? I'm still learning. Something like that. You know, say things that make you comfortable, but don't necessarily say those things in front of the patient. If you're a dental hygienist, it's a little bit different because you're typically on your own, which is awesome. But if you have questions, you might not have anybody to ask. If you go ask up at the front desk, they'll probably have no idea because they're never in the back. If you try to look for an assistant, depending on how many assistants there are, you might not be able to, you know, speak to one. Because if you have a dental assistant who's working with a patient, don't go in there and say, I have a question. Can you help me with one thing? Don't do that. You just kind of have to roll with the punches. But hopefully that day, if it's your first day, whoever's showing you around will let you know who you can go to to ask questions because you will have questions. When I used to temp as a dental hygienist, I would always have questions because you don't know where things are. You don't know a little bit of everything, right? Like, oh, where's your medium-sized gloves? Because I see extra small here, but the dentist says that he needs medium, you know? Like who's, you need to know who you can go to for questions. Charting's the tricky one. For dental assistants and dental hygienists. For dental assistants, hopefully the dentist is doing the charting for you, but you might be in charge of doing the charting for them. So always check those previous entries and see sort of similar procedures to know how they want you to write things down. That's the best thing to do. Like let's say you're assisting with a 3-6 MO composite. Look previously in that chart to see when was the last time they did a composite. Look to see sort of how they wrote things down and then if you can copy and paste into the computer, do that. If it's on paper, just keep kind of going back and seeing how they wrote things down. And in this case, if you don't know Ask, because if you're writing in a chart, you have to be precise, right? It's okay to get something wrong because you can always add it later, but it's still if you're not sure Ask. For dental hygienists, kind of the same thing. Look in previous charts to see sort of how they wrote things down because every office is different. I would say for dental hygienists, booking the next appointment or knowing what to book is the hardest thing if you haven't seen the patient before. Because even if you're coming every three months, well, that's a pretty good indication. You will want them back in three months, but the patient might try to confuse you and say things like, oh, I'm pretty sure I come every nine months. And then you're thinking, okay, the chart says three months. The computer says nine months. Well, what is it? Is it three or nine months? You can't ask the patient. So when you wanna come in, you should know at that point. But I kind of have another video for knowing the appointment intervals too because that was the hardest thing for me to learn as a dental hygienist just because you don't learn that in school per se. You kind of learn it as you go along. But honestly, you guys, it takes time. Don't expect to be perfect because you won't be perfect, but it does help to act confident because you want patients to see you are confident. Staff will think you're pretty amazing if you're new and you act confident. Even if you make two mistakes, three mistakes, eight mistakes, it will happen because you are new, but always act confident. Learn from things you are doing wrong if you don't know ask. Don't ask too many questions, but if you don't ask anything when you should, that's not a good thing either. So just kind of think about things like that. But if you guys need help with something, comment below if you're kind of worried about something and then I can tell you guys how to work through it so you don't have to worry because people know you are new. They will totally understand. It's nice to bring somebody new into the office because then they can kind of train you how they want. It would be hard for me to go into an office and have them train me how they want because I'm set in my ways. After 14, 15 years, we are set in our ways. If they kind of tell us to do something differently, we would do it, but we won't like it. So it's just so much nicer to bring in somebody new. So this is awesome, you guys. Let me know though, comment if you need help with something else. Thank you guys for watching and good luck. You will do amazing.