I completed my practicum at Friendship Heights Family and Cosmetic Dentistry in Friendship Heights, DC. I worked during the winter break of my sophomore year. The dental office offers comprehensive dental treatment, cosmetic services, orthodontics and oral surgery. My supervisor and owner of the office is Dr. Sheri Nawabi, whom I personally know. I had worked in her office several times during my high school years and always enjoyed my work. Everybody working at the office had always been friendly and welcoming. That is why I decided to come back for my practicum. Whereas in the past I had mainly done paperwork and other secretary’s duties, this time I wanted to learn more about the dental procedures and shadow Dr. Nawabi during her work.
The majority of my work consisted of observing Dr. Nawabi treating her patients and assisting her. The procedures I observed include several scaling and root planing treatments, which is a deep cleaning process, fixing and installing of bridges, dentures and crowns and inserting fillings. After every procedure, and sometimes during the procedure, I asked Dr. Nawabi questions to get an understanding of the procedure and learn some basic dentistry. I mainly assisted her by handing her different tools and materials, and keeping the patient’s mouth free of excess saliva and water with the help of the suction tube. I would also help clean up after the treatment and perform other duties in order to help where I can.
In my opinion, the most important thing I got out of my practicum experience is realizing how important a good patient-dentist relationship is. A doctor does not only need to be an outstanding, intelligent academic, but also a very social person. He or she needs to deal with various people with all kinds of personalities. Some people feel uncomfortable and akward at the dentist, especially children, so it important to get to know each patient on a personal level and make them feel at ease and relaxed. I was surprised how much Dr. Nawabi knows about the personal lives of her patients and casually jokes with all of them. I had to be careful not to laugh too much because the patient, sitting in the dental chair, can easily feel laughed at; I did not know the patients as well and had not established that personal relationship.
An important part of dentistry and I think any health field, is to first find out what the patient’s complaints and wishes are and how to solve the issue at hand. It happens too often, that a patient’s complaint is attributed to the wrong problem. Not surprisingly, this is why experience is often more important than education. Of course, you need to master all the science taught at schools of dentistry, but to effectively connect the science to the real world you need experience. As a dentist, one needs to be flexible, practically oriented and constantly trying to acquire new skills and keep up to date with the science. One time, a patient was complaining about a denture that did not fit probably and gave her problems chewing. Instead of sending the denture to a dental laboratory, Dr. Nawabi adjusted the denture herself and saved the patient much time and money. Unfortunately, as I was told, dentists can be infamous for trying to squeeze money out their patient’s insurance by performing unnecessary treatments.
Dentistry like any other health profession is a demanding job, which can often be frustrating. That is why if one wants to enter the field of health professions, one needs to be sure about his or her motives. You truly need to feel empathy for people and must feel the need to help them. Besides that, you must truly love what you are doing. If you do not, things can end badly, even fatally, as Dr. Nawabi told me dentists have a much higher than average suicidal rate. The reason for suicide is almost always that they did not like their job. I will surely keep this in mind when pursuing my education. I will aim to not only pursue the subjects I am good at, or seem to bring me closer to a vague goal I set for myself, but also find out what my passions are. Instead of taking dry science classes, I want to try to fit a health class in my schedule, one that focuses on the human aspect of health professions. In addition, I will want to explore more health professions.
I hope, I can again in the future return to Friendship Heights Family and Cosmetic Dentistry.