Dental Work Experience - Everything You Need to Know!
Over the past couple of months, with face-to-face teaching being cancelled, students have been swept into a whirlwind of online teaching and no external examinations; stepping into an all the more unfamiliar Dental School application process.
The key to your overall application is that you demonstrate the skills you have and how they are transferable to the role of a Dentist. You may wonder, ‘How am I supposed to do this if I am unable to do work experience though?’
This post will cover all the things you can do to gather the knowledge you need to discover, or solidify whether Dentistry is right for you. To Universities, this will demonstrate how you made the best use of your days during these unprecedented times, without being able to have the usual required General Dental Practice exposure.
1. We highly recommend signing up to the Discover Dentistry e-course developed by University of Sheffield, a fantastic introduction to studying Dentistry: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/discover-dentistry.
2. On the fence about Dentistry and want to explore Medicine to confirm which is right for you? Try Brighton and Sussex Medical School virtual work experience too! See if your interests lie more in the medical field, or dental field: https://bsmsoutreach.thinkific.com/courses/VWE
3. Get in touch with our Dentists and dental students to hear about the reality of Dentistry by email. We also encourage you to contact other members of the dental team such as nurses, hygienists, dental lab technicians and ask them questions about their job to get a realistic perspective on the Dental field. You can do this by ringing up your local dental practice, alternatively email us and we can see what we can do for you / if there are any questions we can answer for you!
4. Make sure you tune in to our webinars dedicated to this!
5. Get your work experience request letters ready to send - a template for a placement request is available here.
6. Read about current affairs - to stay up-to-date on hot topics using resources such as:
www.dentistry.co.uk
https://www.nature.com/bdj/ (British Dental Association/British Dental Journal)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cg1leymm60xt/healthcare (BBC News Healthcare section)
https://www.dentistrytoday.com/
7. Volunteering - despite the lockdown, as long as it is safe and abiding by the government rules, think of ways you can volunteer for your community i.e doing the shopping for an elderly neighbour. We've made logbooks for work experience both during lockdown and prior to lockdown - download them for free t.
8. Brainstorm all the experience and volunteering opportunities you have already had and begin to think about the skills observed and how you can demonstrate these. Download our work experience table here to help sort this out.
Get in touch with hello@step2med.co.uk for more questions, sign up to our newsletter for free Dental School application content, and turn on your Instagram post notifications @step2med.
This post was written by our resident Dental Tutor, Shivani Kotecha, who is also our Dentistry Lead.
To find out more email hello@step2med.co.uk or message us on @step2med on social media and we'll be in touch!
