When you start treating patients directly, how will you handle a new situation that you are unfamiliar with?
Training as a dental student will put you into new situations daily, especially when you are caring for and treating patients for the first time. In asking this question, your interviewing team wants to hear that you can walk a fine line between diving into a situation head-on and asking for help when necessary.
Before your interviewer, put some serious thought into which situations you would feel comfortable in learning with a hands-on approach and which situations you would feel uncomfortable with. Come to your interview prepared to discuss this comfort level.
"My first concern would be the safety of the patient in a situation like this. When confronted with a new situation during a routine cleaning, I wouldn't hesitate to jump in while leaning on a faculty member or senior student for feedback. That said, I would never jump into something that could potentially harm a patient if I were to make a mistake. In a situation like this, I would seek out a faculty member or precepting dentist to help me work through the situation so I could learn from them."
