Dental Assistant Duties of Assisting The Main Dentist Free Sample

Question: Write an essay (of at least 150 words) of 3 Situations at your Workplace as a Dental Assistant where you had an Encounter with a Person/Group of People such as your Work Colleagues, Patient and/or Other Health Care Professionals of a different Social and Cultural Background. Answers: Case 1: The dental assistant performs the duty of assisting the main dentist while the later attends the patients. The dentist also recruited another asssiatnt for the evening hours as the former assistant mainly handled his works in the morning. The new assistant belonged to an Islamic background and therefore he often faced issues in preparing female patients for surgery as his culture prevented him from touching patients of the opposite gender (Yoder-Wise, 2014). Therefore, in order to respect his position, the dentist paid importance to my suggestion and allocated the female patients in the morning shifts so that he faces no restriction in his practices. However, he was also advised in a mature way, that being a figure born to provide service to humankind, he should try his best to overcome his cultural backlogs so that he can achieve the best result that he expects in his profession. The communication was effective and he accepted to try his best to overcome his restrictions. Case 2: A Hispanic patient had visited the clinic to undergo a treatment for cavities that had occurred in his premolars. On the advice of the dentist, the dental assistant who was English, advised her to go for a root canal treatment. He assured that the root canal treatment would provide her relief in the future. He also clarified, that she might face minor complications in the first few days. He also stated that even bleeding may occur and conditions in certain cases may become complicated as it does not provide 100% assurance but may provide 80% assurance from the pain relief. However, being Hispanic and having very little idea about English language, she was not able to understand any of the information and even did not raise any query. However after the root canalling was done, she suffered from severe pain and complained that the dental assistant had not given enough information before conducting the intervention. Therefore, the dental assistant called for a language interpreter and d iscussed the entire case scenario that had happened (Truong, Paradies Priest, 2014). The patient understood that it was not a mistake from our end and active and felt embarrassed for making the complaint. From that time onwards, the dental clinic had recruited a language interpreter so that language can never become a barrier in effective service delivery. Case 3: The dentist had recruited an Iranian assistant for helping him in attending patient. However, the Australian dentist had very few idea about the cultures maintained in Iran. While communicating with the assistant, he used to look directly into his eyes, which according to him was normal for the westerners. However, eye contact while communication is considered a very rude behavior, as they believe that it affects their self-respect and is against their culture. As soon as the dentist came to know about the inferiority complex that the assistant is experiencing while communicating with the dentist, he immediately modified his behavior. He made sure that he does not make eye contacts with him while assigning him tasks. This resulted in establishment of a proper working environment free from any humane complexes (McClimens, Brewster Lewis, 2014). References: McClimens, A., Brewster, J., Lewis, R. (2014). Recognising and respecting patients cultural diversity.Nursing Standard,28(28), 45-52. Truong, M., Paradies, Y., Priest, N. (2014). Interventions to improve cultural competency in healthcare: a systematic review of reviews.BMC health services research,14(1), 99. Yoder-Wise, P. S. (2014).Leading and managing in nursing. Elsevier Health Sciences.