For my service learning project, I choose to showcase my job shadowing experiences across a variety of dental offices. I am required to do over 50 hours of observation in any dental office setting to apply to most dental schools. I thought writing journals about my experience would be perfect way to reflect on the different opportunities I had. Since I have no formal training in any dental field, I was only able to observe procedures, but as a person extremely interested in this career path, it was fascinating. I observed at three different dental practices for various amounts of time, a general dentistry practice (18 hrs.), an orthodontics practice (4 hrs.), and the Open Door Health Clinic center (7 hrs.) all here in Mankato.
The biggest values I have taken away from observing in dentist offices to grow in my leadership competency would be the importance of having a professional, but close relationship with staff, managing time efficiently for patients, being a technology forward office, keeping patient comfortability at an all time high, and having the opportunity to share my education with others. I have found that the closer relationship I could have with my assistants, hygienists, and office manager, the easier to keep my mission and values as a dentist will be.
My goal is to show kindness and be nonjudgmental towards patients coming in to the office. As a Community Advisor, it’s easy for me to tell my residents using an autocratic method of leadership, “Go to class, do your homework, don’t drink or do drugs.” And be very upset with them when they break these rules, but it doesn’t help to just remind them repeatedly like a mom as this has shown to be ineffective and turn residents away. Instead, taking time to sit down one on one with them, give advice of resources of campus they can visit, recognizing them with them do something great, and supporting them when something goes wrong is extremely important using a coaching method of leadership. I observed this type of leadership from both my Hall Director and my first CA, and it was the first time I tried it out as I was working with students younger than me.
If, and when, I can’t reach them through coaching and servant methods is when I start to show “tough love” (autocratic leadership). Just like with patients, I would like to have more consulting and time to get to know my patients, vs. a five second, “Hi how are you, you have 6 cavities to fill and I can’t believe you haven’t come in sooner!” on top of telling them how much it is going to cost. This only causes anxiety to worsen and turn them away from the dentist even more. Using a mix of servant leadership (how can I help you) and coaching leadership (how can we help you change your habits), could have patients more comfortable in my office.
My philosophy of leadership revolves around “clear communication and accountability within reason, open to discussion on all ideas, working towards a common goal based on our strengths and weakness’. Clear communication and accountability within reason describes my want to have everyone on my team understand our standards clearly so to handle conflict, recognize each other, and be accountable for our actions. In the dental field, I would have our team standards posted and have one on one meetings with each staff member at set dates to assess if they are meeting these standards and if they would like any changes made. My team then would also have a chance to evaluate me as well in a confidential manner, I did this with the RHA executive board and found it very helpful.
Being open to discussion on all ideas means being open to change is a strong mentality to have. In the dental field, the same routine might not work for every patient. I really liked how a dental office I visited would send one of their employees to different dental conferences in the US to learn new idea or technology to incorporate into their office. This also applies to the team standards and how we work together as a team, new ideas should always be welcomed and fully evaluated before throwing them out. I have observed on other teams that bringing up a new idea to change a policy already in place leading to a long discussion that ends with the policy remaining the same can disgruntle people. However, I think its necessary as it might spark an idea in someone’s head that can be even more beneficial than what was first proposed.
Lastly, working together towards a common goal based on strengths and weakness’ is a good way to set up a team for success. Maybe someone on the team has stronger communication skills and some is better at creating a new t-shirt design. A team may have set roles, like President or Technology Chair, but that doesn’t mean they can’t step into someone else’s shoes if need be, especially if a new task is handed out that a team member is struggling to understand. In my dental office I would want to do team activities to discover our strengths and weakness’ in order to understand why some people think and lead the way they do. I have found this to be successful while working on other teams like RHA and being a CA. As a woman in the STEM field, many people often just assume I am going to be a dental hygienist when I say I want to be dentist. Nobody has ever brought up the fact I will be a doctor, and when I say I’m a senior, they assume I have learned all about teeth already. I cannot wait to be in dental school and share my experiences with those who do not understand, and one day I really hope to employ students who graduate from MSU and offering student internships for pre-dental students as my way of giving back to the community.
Below is my journal from my experiences and a video I created on tooth development for another class!