Dentistry Interview Questions Dr R.1 Flashcards
Tell me about yourself.
Hi, my name is Sav, I was born and raised in London. Here, I was surrounded by a close and supportive family and went to a quiet independent school in a small town known as Epsom. Here, I was into sports, the sciences and tech. This is where my dental interest began, I used to play a lot of Rugby and I played on the school team. We would often participate in tournaments against many leading schools near and around London. I was drawn to dentistry after I suffered some trauma following a rough rugby tackle. Despite having a mouthguard, I ended up having a broken incisor.
Since then, I have spent the last few years continuing to play rugby while also gaining some experience to gear myself toward this career. Such as work experience, visiting a dental laboratory, spoken to a few dental alumni and done some soldering to keep up with my manual dexterity skills, to name a few. I have also taken a gap year and worked at the local grocery store to keep myself busy, adjust to working life and become increasingly independent which will help whilst I’m at university.
I’d say I’m an empathetic person. I enjoy working in a team and am very people oriented. As well as this I like doing some Public Speaking in my spare time. I hope to continue utilising this skill whilst I’m at university whether that is through presentations or speaking to individuals on a day-to-day basis building my ability to bring up conversations on the spot. I’m really ambitious and I am looking forward to what the university has to offer and how I can fully immerse myself within the uni experience.
Add some uni specifics at the end.
Why Dentistry?
I used to play a lot of Rugby as part of the school team. We would often be involved in tournaments against some of the schools around London. I was drawn to dentistry after I suffered some trauma following a rough rugby tackle. Despite having a mouthguard, I ended up having a broken incisor. This led to a lot of sensitivity as well as anxiety regarding the future of my tooth and I was embarrassed to smile.
After seeing an emergency dentist, I realised it is a highly respected profession and I understood how important teeth were to a person’s image. Oral health is often overlooked, and I was immediately impressed by how the dentist handled my anxiety and went through the appointment. The dentist treated me with a lot of respect, asked about my rugby, built a rapport, and then gave me a treatment option that I was happy with.
Following this, I started to consider my own career path. I was drawn to healthcare and wished to have the same role as a dentist, where I could be hands on, attentive, and respond to the various needs of many patients. Being on the receiving end of care really motivated me, but my work experience confirmed that this career would really align with my interests.
What has been the most challenging experience of your life?
a. Life has involved many challenges for me. However, I would like to think that each challenge has pushed me to become a better version of myself.
b. For example, during my education, I had difficulty with studying for a level alongside work experience, volunteering preparing for the UCAT and keeping up with your extracurriculars. – How did you manage this – calendar system etc.
c. and preparing for a level whilst receiving rejections for dental school. – teaching you resilience.
What has been the most rewarding experience of your life?
a. I have had many rewarding moments in my life. The first thing that comes to mind is.
b. Empathising with an individual that was going through a hard time, and being able to recognise this, and be able to turn around and stabilise the situation helped me realise how rewarding it is to utilise interpersonal skills with another individual.
c. Perhaps relate to dentistry – orthodontics.
What accomplishment are you most proud of?
a. I was incredibly proud of myself when I won a swimming competition. This is a huge passion of mine and I love to train myself to reach a goal. This took a lot of training every single day and being able to win alongside my team was an amazing feeling. That is probably my proudest moment.
b. Talk about discipline.
c. Relate to how discipline is important in dentistry - Dr Jabbal BDJ “Disciple is the most important thing to me” - To unleash your potential and become the best version of yourself, discipline is paramount. Dentistry is an everchanging and ever expanding profession, and the wealth of resources and CPD there are in devistry is a lot, having goals and being disciplined on a regular basis to reach those goals is something I am determined to do, so I can provide a really impactful experience to patients around the world as a dentist - its easy to get distracted from your goals - discipline keeps you on track and help you reach your targets which can very rewarding when reaching those targets.
Tell me about a disappointment you have experienced.
a. Receiving rejections from dental school.
b. Why was it disappointing?
c. What did it teach you? – It taught me patience and resilience, and to self-reflect. Made me wonder what I can do to improve my application and improve on my chances to get into dental school.
d. Did it make you more resilient? – Definitely, it made me stronger as an individual and taught me how to recover quickly and maintain composure in difficult circumstances and the emotions you are feeling in the moment is temporary and natural etc.
e. How will this resilience improve your ability to handle challenges in dentistry? – talk about case in work experience – routine tooth extraction, unexpectedly needed surgical intervention – talk about how important resilience was in this moment and in future occurrences.
Tell me about a mistake that you’ve made.
a. When I first began working at a supermarket, I took some time to familiarise myself with the shop floor and how to manage busy customers. I initially didn’t recognise how important teamwork would be when the shop was busy. On one occasion it was really busy, and I was not aware of how quickly the line was building up, I was focused on arranging the stock until I overheard a customer complaining about the wait.
Mistakes were a part of the job, I slowly learned to integrate within the team, recognise when help was needed and how to manage with others
b. Even in dentistry, I recognised mistakes happen. During my work experience, I shadowed an aesthetic dentist. Mistakes happened! Failing to communicate something with the patient, or treatment not going to plan.
c. Sometimes patients return and have found the fillings too high or rough. These are the mistakes that I anticipate will happen during uni and beyond this, I hope to overcome these by working closely with my nurse and also being a proactive nurse during my early years. I hope to reflect on my mistakes to continually improve.
