Final Blog Post

Over the course of my time with my mentor at Western Dental. My use of critical thinking helped me througout this project because I was able to understand what tools were used and how they were used unlike before when I didnt know what they were called or used for. This project also helped me break out of my shell and ask alot more questions and communicate with my mentor and patients with their families more frequently. I also felt that I collaborated more with the staff as well, and helped them if they needed it. Lastly, my creativity helped me produce my powerpoint to be effrective and precise to what i was taught.
The capstone project also taught me numerous things such as experiences personally, socially, and intellectually. Personally, this pr
oject helped me become less shy and work to the best of my ability. Socially, this project enable me to ask questions and communicate more with the staff, and just overall with perople in general. Intellectually I felt like I learned alot of new things that were crucial to the making of this project and am very glad I did.
Lastly, I faced some challenges like everyone else during this project that not only posed as threats to my project but helped me overcome these such challenges. Some challenges I faced were procrastination, time constraints, being busy or not busy, and not being able to communicate well enough with my mentor. I overcame these challenges one by one by turning in everything on time, trying to show up more with my mentor, communicating better, and showing ip onmoderate days were i was able to ask my mentor important questions. I am very lucky to have such an understanding mentor and am grateful for her acknowledgement of my being at her work.

Mentor Hours (25 total)

Today was my last day with my mentor. I spent 3 hours with her and must honestlyadmit I had a very fun and educated time with her. I couldnt ask for a better mentor. Today's session with her resulted in a running total of 25 complete hours. As usual, I watched her perform touch ups on patients, give consults, put braces on someone, and fix broken brackets and retainers. Overall, throughout the various stages of this project, I feel like I have really improved my knowledge on what a pediatric orthodontist really does. My thoughts and feeling have to be a little surprised at howmuch work they do, how many years they have to go to school for, how important they are to a business, and how much money they make ! As stated before, I couldnt have asked for a better mentor and am very glad she decided to be my mentor!

Mentor Hours (22)

I was able to meet up with my mentor last Tuesday. However, she was unable to work due to jury duty. Luckily, I was ablr to spend an hour or so with the dental assistants and see what they do while she was not there. So far, I have a running total of 22 hours. Anyways, I didnt really do much other than see what the assistants prepare and clean the tools before use. They also showed me how to clean the tools used for fixing retainers and how to touch up the machines if they arent perfect. Overall it was a pretty cool time!