Questions to ask during work experience?

Hello,

I have secured a one week work experience placement at a NHS dental practice starting next week.

I have a list of broad open questions to ask, however to those who have already undertook dental work experience (nhs, private or any other specialised areas of dentistry) - what sort of questions did you ask?

Should I literally bombard them with questions or should I just sit back, observe and make a couple of notes from my observation whilst asking relevant questions when ever I feel it is appropriate to do so?

Thank you for reading. Any input would be highly appreciated

Have a nice day

If you want my advice, don't bother asking technical stuff, like what materials are you using and why, or about the actual treatment. I would spend most of your time focusing on the following.

1. How and why good teamwork and communication are important
2. How the dentist leads the team and what his role is
3. The role of all the other members of the dental team
4. How to deal with nervous, rude, young, old and otherwise out of the ordinary patients
5. What to do in the case of a medical emergency (hypoglycemic episode, vasovagal syncope, heart attack and asthma attack etc)
6. What the role of the GDC is and how it affects dental professionals (you should also know that the GDC sets the standards for dental education)
7. Ask a lot about NHS vs private (good and bad points of each)
8. Ask about the newly proposed NHS contract and the introduction of direct access (this is the idea that dental hygienists and therapists will no longer have to be supervised by dentists but will be able to have their own practices and patient lists)
9. Ask about ethical scenarios, i.e. What would you do if a patient came to you with severe toothache but no money to pay you etc. There are loads of these, you can google them or think them up yourself, a good professional dentist should be able to give a good answer to these.
10. Ask about some anecdotes that you can talk about in your interview, remember that the people interviewing you will probably be dentists, so if you can slip in a few things that all dentists have in common e.g. dodgy dental lab communication etc. Then it will look like you really know your stuff!

Hope that has helped, by all means ask technical questions etc for your own interest, but the ones i've listed above are the most important i believe.
Ryan.

Hello,

I have secured a one week work experience placement at a NHS dental practice starting next week.

I have a list of broad open questions to ask, however to those who have already undertook dental work experience (nhs, private or any other specialised areas of dentistry) - what sort of questions did you ask?

Should I literally bombard them with questions or should I just sit back, observe and make a couple of notes from my observation whilst asking relevant questions when ever I feel it is appropriate to do so?

Thank you for reading. Any input would be highly appreciated

hi can you please tell me how you secured your work experience placement?
I have contacted more than 20 dental practices and no luck. I would really appreciate if you gave me the contact details.

Have a nice day

hi can you please tell me how you secured your work experience placement?
I have contacted more than 20 dental practices and no luck. I would really appreciate if you gave me the contact details.

hi can you please tell me how you secured your work experience placement?
I have contacted more than 20 dental practices and no luck. I would really appreciate if you gave me the contact details.

This is really great advice and I would highly recommend you follow this advice. Also don't be afraid to find out if the dentist can recommend anyone else that might be able to help you get some more work experience, if you want to see more that is. Good luck


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