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A comment on: Work Experience – Why should we bother?
The recent guest editorial entitled, ‘Work Experience – Why should we bother?’ (Dent Update 2020; 47: 183-185) exemplifies the difficulties, of the not-so-distant past, that I encountered in securing work experience as a sixth form student. I can recall contacting numerous NHS and mixed dental practices, in addition to dental laboratories, hospitals, care homes and hospices, in the hope to shadow clinicians, technicians and to volunteer in helping those most in need of care. The list of perceived barriers were all very familiar responses that I received, often unsupported by an explanation, even on request. I thank Dr Joanna Batt for myth-busting these common misconceptions and hope this message will reach a number of dental practitioners, hesitant to facilitate potentially ‘life changing’ opportunities for students. To extrapolate my personal experiences, I speculate that the acceptance rate for work experience applications from students to dental practices is seemingly low. Work experience is often the most preliminary exposure students will have with the profession. The inability of practitioners to offer these opportunities risk discouraging future cohorts to pursue careers in dentistry.
Given that these impediments are recognized amongst admissions teams, it would seem appropriate for relevant work experience to be considerably advantageous in a prospective student's application to an undergraduate dental programme, particularly those that have observed clinicians in a range of dental settings, irrespective of the time spent on such placements, since this is usually pre-determined. This may seem contradictory, but even a superficial awareness of statistical probability would suggest that, if an applicant were to enquire at enough practices, at least one placement should be guaranteed. Maximizing the chance of securing work experience will require students to demonstrate initiative, perseverance, commitment, good organization and professionalism, to name but a few. All of which are sought-after qualities. Might this be suggestive of a genuine interest in dentistry, which is otherwise near-impossible to indicate in the four-thousand characters permitted? Perhaps work experience in a dental environment, given the associated barriers, is the best indicator in separating the men from the boys and the women from the girls?