During the past 2 weeks of Internship experience at two different dentist clinics, I’ve now understood more about the industries as well as achieving both ATL goals that I’ve made before the start of the event. The first goal that I’ve achieved is “Understanding my roles”, and I simply achieve it but understanding the customer’s needs. For example, there was one time in both clinics I become the person that measures the body temperature of the incoming patients before their checking at the front desk of both clinics, maybe because I’ve got the experience of getting measured when entering a clinical area so I feel my mood and actions changes depends on the patients. Another ATL Goal that I’ve made was achieving the idea of reflections and improve on it, we were assigned a reflections interview video on the flip grid every 10 hours of shift, however, I also took notes of my actions and reflect them on my own during break/spare time and this I believe improves my recording skills and self-reflecting skills. This improvement particularly would help me achieve in my academic by understanding the importance of taking notes since now I think it is only useful to recall it before the test, but as this method has shown that I do remember more if I recall it every day or even if I have any free time, just look over it. As for the other goal, I think I now understand more about my roles and personal ability in achieving them. So later on in school, when I am assigned to a group, I would try to find my role by my ability because I won’t want to mess up anything as grades get heavier these days. Same with my experience in the clinic that the doctor won’t ask me to cure a patient since I don’t have much ability in the field compared to him/her. Finally, the most unexpected ideas or concepts that I’ve gained from this course is during a lunch with the CEO of the ABC dentist associations who share with me about his life as a Dentist that seeks chances and uncertainties. The main conclusion that I’ve learned is always to try unique cases, even though no one cures them for a reason but if you successfully cure the patient, you will be very successful if You manage it properly. Also, I was afraid I want to learn much from this course since I originally signup for another internship which would learn concepts of company management, but the CEO shares with me loads of stories and experience which gain me the concepts to the outside world and future steps.
Believe it or not, there are times where I want to quit the program because most of the time in the day interns like me would just be standing outside the operating room watching doctors operating surgeries for hours and hours. To me I don’t see any purpose of monitoring professionals on their surgeries as the knowledge required in that field is way out of reach of mine as an 11th grader. After a thorough discussion with my monitor, he decided to communicate with the clinic and shift me the tooth model contracting lab where I see people operating tools to fix the dentures.
Dear Wilson,
I’m thoroughly impressed with your reflections and the depth in which you analyzed each operation and task given by your mentors at the KDA internship. ABC Clinic and Dr. Tsou’s have nothing but praise for your work ethic and dedication within such a short amount of time. Although the Kaohsiung Dental Association Internship was not your first choice, I’m glad to know that it has left such a positive impact on your understanding of the dental field!
– David Hung 01/23/2021