Category Archives: 1. Professionalism

Back when I recently completed my second year, I had encountered with an upperclassman who taught me more on instrumentation in summer clinic. Although I had learnt instrumentation in class, it was a different learning experience coming from the upperclassman: somehow, all the learning issues that I had instantly vanished. It was such an inspirational experience – I learnt the way she answers my questions and her teaching methods, which was mainly through demonstration. I wanted to have that leadership aspect of hers. It was then I hoped to become like her, to be a good mentor to the future underclassmen.

Upon fourth year, the program had added a new rotation where fourth years play a leadership role to second years and help mentor their learning. I was beyond thrilled. My first peer mentor rotation included a lot of communication, demonstration, critical thinking and collaboration with the second year students and their instructor. We were all passionate on learning how to do dental and periodontal exams. Not only I felt as though I improved my leadership skills at the end, I also made some new connections from the second years!

From this experience, peer mentoring has been shown that sometimes students also learn best by another dental hygiene student as they experienced the same thing as they did, compared to an instructor. It was more relatable, and students were more curious and asked a lot of questions much more than to their instructor.

It was during third year I started to have clinical rotations with the graduate periodontal students, where I had the opportunity to observe and assist in a couple of surgeries with my assigned graduate periodontal student. Until then, I realized my lack of knowledge in the graduate periodontal department, and I yearned to learn more about them and how dental hygienists can collaborate with them.

During fourth year, I was assigned to present a treatment planning seminar on any kind of intervention, and luckily, a client of mine needed referral to the graduate periodontal student at that time. Therefore, I thought this was the perfect time to collaborate with a graduate periodontal student, and it turned out to be a huge learning experience.

My client was referred to receive implants. Together, the grad student and I with research use, scientific investigation and critical thinking compiled treatment plans for dental hygiene and graduate periodontal programs. From literature, I learnt useful information such as risks of peri-implant disease and how it can be controlled or prevented in dental hygiene, such as poor plaque control and history of periodontal disease. Significantly, we were able to achieve a shared goal.

I realized that my confidence in collaborating with other health professionals to ensure optimal care for my client has improved, as well as my communication skills. I began to think of other health professionals whom I can personally collaborate with as well, and I hope to have those opportunities in the near future.