Dental Assisting School?

Question

I am in my second week of dental assisting school. I knew the classes would be tough, and I'm doing fine with all the studying. My question is, did anyone else go to school for dental assisting (or hygiene) and have to deal with all sorts of rules, such as only wearing certain color hair ties, don't wear any jewelry, wear a certain kind of sock, change shoes between the classroom and the clinic, etc? They seem to be going a little overboard about it. Is it like that in a dental office as well? And while working as an assistant, do you write down a medical history for a patient, we are supposed to ask the patient every question on the sheet and write it down for them, but whenever I have gone to the doctor I fill it out myself and give it to the receptionist. And one final question: whenever I have gone to the dentist, they have never taken my blood pressure, pulse, and respirations, but we have to do that for every patient in school. As a working assistant, do you take vital signs? Thanks!

Answer 1

Schools often put you through your paces, simply because they know they can. It would be nice if the doctor took vital signs in his office, I certainly would have like to make sure that my patients was able to handle oral surgery. But, for the most part the doctor wants to get in, get out and move on to the next patient, the more he/she sees the more money the practice brings in.

I took down the history on the patients on the  initial consultation, you do not want them to be on certain drugs and cause them to bleed out, but most doctors would rather the patient do it, less liability if the patient did not document something then the staff.  

Answer 2

Hehe  I remembering losing marks in Clinical because my socks had words on it..... white socks ... tiny letters "Fubu" ( brand name) ....  I had to take my socks off .....

School is A TON more strict then any office.

Im a Dental assistant and I work Temp ( office to office covering sick people or holidays or  in-between staff) So I can easily say that I have worked in 50+ offices.

Some offices wear a certain color scrubs on a particular day of the week... but beyond that I don't change my shoes, heck they are silver not white!  

In school jewelry was bad, in an office, they don't care.

Some office want you to ask "any changes since your last appointment to your medical history?".

I have been asked MAYBE ONCE to do vitals,  and it was cuz I suggested to the dentist it should be done.

Take my advice, do as they tell you in school( no complaints) ... pass ... go find a job.