One of the defining differences between the American Institute of Dental Assisting and our competitors is our live patient clinic hours. We understand that online education may be more appealing, especially if you work full-time. However, most of our students continue to work full-time. To make it easier for you to manage your schedule, we provide flexible evening and weekend clinic hours.
When narrowing down your options in dental assisting schools, prioritize the quality of your education. This includes short-listing programs that prepare you for your new career with live clinic hours.
Below are the top ways working with live patients prepares you in ways that practicing with a plastic dummy simply can’t.
Practice Your Technical Skills
You’ll learn to utilize dental instruments in the classroom and lab, but practicing in the lab isn’t the same as working with a real-life patient. Your clinic hours provide the opportunity to begin perfecting your technique. Our patients understand that we’re a teaching clinic, providing a comfortable space for you to practice.
Beyond the opportunity to practice, the dentist provides you with feedback to help you improve upon your individual areas of opportunity.
Practice Your Soft Skills
Even with strong communication skills, you’ll need to learn how to communicate in a new professional environment. A large portion of your interaction is with patients, as you’re often the first face they see after checking in for their appointment. You’ll welcome patients, ease their nerves, and pass along questions and concerns to the dental hygienist and dentist. You’ll also provide treatment instructions.
During your clinic shifts, you’ll practice hands-on patient skills and primary job duties, including:
- Pulling and reviewing patient files
- Making notes in patient files
- Setting up procedure room trays
- Sterilizing patient rooms
- Sterilizing dental instruments
- Taking physical or digital X-rays
- And more
Learn the Flow of a Dental Clinic
Dental practices are fast-paced environments that require you to manage more than one patient at a time. If you don’t stay organized and work together as a team, it can create a bottleneck that can take hours to recover from.
Practice makes perfect. Your clinic hours provide you with an opportunity to begin learning the operational flow of a dental practice. Every practice has a distinct patient flow, but you can begin learning best practices.
First-Day Job Confidence
Clinic hours empower you and reduce your learning curve, providing confidence in your new position. The first day in any new job can induce butterflies; even more if it’s your very first day. You’ll feel far more confident having practiced your new skills outside of the dental lab.
You’ll still need to learn the dentist’s preferences, but you’ll launch your career with a peace of mind that can’t be obtained with online or classroom-only education. You’ll also learn to work as part of a team with your dental hygienist, dentist, and office manager.
Faster Job Placement
Clinic hours don’t just prepare you for your new career, they make you a more attractive candidate. So much so, that dental practices throughout Colorado call AIDA first when they have job openings.
Resume writing, interview skills, and job placement assistance are included with your education. This includes access to dental assisting positions only offered to AIDA students.
Want to Learn More About AIDA?
If you would like to discuss the advantages of live patient clinic hours or AIDA’s program as a whole—schedule a tour. We’ll answer all your questions, show you the lab, and share our flexible lab and clinic schedules.
Our 13 Week Dental Assisting Program can be completed solo or prior to our 7 Week Expanded Duties Dental Assistant Program.
We hope to see you soon!