5 tips to make the most as a dental assistant

A dental assistant career comes with a lot of professional and personal growth: you are not only empowering patients by making them feel confident with their smiles, but you are also creating a network that will likely be a powerful tool throughout your professional years. In this blog, we want to give you five tips so you can make the most of the first months at a new job.

1. Learn from your patients

As a dental assistant, you will not only be the right hand of your dentist but also of your patients. Listening and educating them about good oral hygiene practices will not only help them to change their habits but also will give you a better understanding of their concerns. Understanding will help you to formulate relevant questions and assist your patients more efficiently in the long term.

2. Contribute to creating a healthy work environment.

Being a dental assistant can be distressful some times, we get that! Especially if you have difficult coworkers. Fortunately, nowadays we have countless tools that help us to manage all types of personalities and the most important part not to take things personally: you can try mindfulness apps, this is a great start to create self-awareness and help you to be the change in a stressful environment. 

3. Connect with your coworkers

This is related to the previous point, once you have detected how your coworkers behave and how you can approach them, you can actually develop meaningful relationships that can grow your network. You never know where people will end up, and maybe a person that you work with in the past could help you to get into a better position in the future.

4. Ask for feedback

According to the article “How to build a successful team” by the New York Times, you should get feedback within the first months in any new position and throughout your time working in the organization, but sometimes managers get caught up with a busy practice/ agenda and they forget the importance of doing so to keep the employees engaged; ask for feedback!.

It is important for you to know when to make changes and of course to boost up your confidence if you are doing a good job.

5. Get involved

Being a dental assistant requires to do many repetitive tasks during your shift, however, most of them are an opportunity to ask and learn more.

You should get involved in what your coworkers are doing: when you see new patients, ask relevant questions, learn about their medical history and learn from the solutions given by your colleges. Your work environment might be a great source of inspiration for you to keep pursuing a higher degree or to do a change in your career.

We hope these tips help you to become a great dental assistant, please share if you like and be part of the Medijobs community by commenting on our section.