Posted by : Jon Cochran in (Dental health)
Tips For Choosing Your Dentistry Career Path
Tagged Under : Career, dental, Dental health, dentist, job
Odontology is an excellent career option. Few tips on how to check out aptness for it will make it simpler in choosing your dentistry career path. If you have a family dentist, ask him or her if you can get a little work experience.
Ask him or her if you can observe how a dental practice is run as you are considering dental medicine as an occupation. The dentist will probably be only too keen to promote your interest. Take time to observe the whole practice, not just the dentistry. Study the administration; watch the dentist’s interaction with his/her staff, as well as with his/her patients. It is important that you are able to communicate with the patients and are not nauseous at the sight of blood.
If you are still at school doing ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels, these need to be directed towards the sciences. If you decide that odontology is your chosen career, then you will need to go to university. Try to get at least six ‘O’ levels at ‘A’ grades, then three good ‘A’ level results, two of which must be ‘A’ grade in biology and chemistry.
Assuming you have the required grades, one will then have to undergo the required exam. This is carried out by universities offering dental degrees, and is designed to check attitude, aptitude, logic, and communication. If you pass all these exams, then you may be one of the 75 out of 1000 applicants that are chosen.
To obtain Bachelor of Dental Surgery degree, you will be at university for five years. There is intense study of the head and neck. You may also find yourself leaning towards a specialty, such as pathology or surgery and work out of a hospital or clinic.
However, most newly qualified dentists start in general practice as a junior partner. This helps with learning about the entire running of a practice, the administration, staffing, protocols, and so on. However, if you have a good business head and the finance to do it, you can start a private practice.
In certain countries, the dentist rarely works within the National Health Service. Most dentists are private and patients have to pay, or join an insurance scheme that allows them consultations and work as and when needed. As a result of this, dental medicine has become a very well paid profession, with most private dentists earning in excess of 100,000 pounds sterling per annum. Dentistry is a career well worth choosing.
Learn more about Choosing Your Dentistry Career Path. Stop by IDH’s site where you can find out all about dental recruitment and what it can do for you.