Dental Office Internship: One Week In

In my previous post, I mentioned how volunteering at my dad's dental office wasn't the best idea, as it was too unoriginal. Everyone did it, right? I thought so as well, but I still desired to be a part of my dad's dental program. As a family, we decided that instead of just volunteering, we could do an internship. Doing an internship would not only allow us to start getting paid but allow us to experience more aspects of a dentist's life than volunteering would, as volunteering typically requires you to do only menial tasks.

Initially, I was actually pretty excited to start the internship. The only experience that I previously had with my dad's dental office was through cleanings and the denture cleaning program we had started recently, so I was curious as to see what the full work day for my dad and other employees looked like. On the first day, the workers had no clue that we were coming and were quite surprised to see us all (my siblings are obviously doing the internship as well). They quickly got acclimated to us, however, and we started learning about the front desk position.

Over my first week, I learned many skills like scheduling patients, filling out patient and insurance information, and scanning various forms. I even started accepting the phone! I know, I know, that's not a big deal; answering the phone is to be expected from any receptionist. But for me, a shy kid, it was a step towards coming out of my comfort zone. But as always, I made some major mistakes. One time, I told the patient that I would put them on hold, and then I by accidentally hung up on them before hitting the hold button. It was embarrassing but a good learning experience for both me and my siblings, who had a good laugh over my mistake along with the receptionist. I also helped sterilize the tools (which is the type of work I was expecting to do). At one office, I found sterilizing the tools way easier to do, as the dental tools were wrapped up in these rubber ties. At the other office, all the tools were combined to be cleaned at once, which made organizing them into bags afterward harder, as you actually had to know which tools went with each bag (and obviously I had no clue about that).

Overall, I think that I enjoyed my first week of internship more than I thought I would. Honestly, coming into this internship, I didn't like the idea of calling and talking to patients, but I realized that it was way easier than I thought it was going to be. Also, I got a deeper understanding of each of the workers and patients that my dad always talk about in his stories from the office. I got to interact with people that I only knew from stories at the dinner table, and working alongside them helped me appreciate their work more. Though some patients were rough to deal with (there are always those types of people), the internship was still a great experience. As for goals for my internship this summer, I hope to one day be able to shadow my dad or one of the other dentists to see their practice firsthand.