CBBC News

Thank you for chatting with us today, Kayla. Can you start by telling us why someone might want to consider a career as a Dental Assistant?

Kayla:
Students should consider a career as a dental assistant because it is something that is really up and coming. There is so much movement within the dental field right now and so many people looking for registered dental assistants, not just within Nova Scotia, but really all throughout Canada. So it gives you that opportunity to stay local if you want to, but there’s so much movement that you can do with that as well.

Great. And why is CBBC Career College the best choice for schooling?

Kayla:

There are other schools that you could go to other than CBBC, but something about us that I think makes us so special is first we have this distance program that not many other colleges offer. So you’re able to stay in your location. You’re not having to worry about relocating somewhere. You can stay home and learn from there. You do have to come to Sydney sometimes, but we have the most fun, we’re a great team here. We always have a great class. We have so much fun when they’re in here for patient clinic and for their practicums, and then you get to go home and kind of recoup, go back to online, get your bearings back, and then also start a career throughout that year within a placement.

If it works out well and they’re looking to hire somebody and you enjoy your time there, most of our graduates do end up with a job before they even finish school. It kind of gives us a benefit there, where it’s allowing you to stay home, but it’s also allowing you to get a job offer before you’re even graduated.

What qualities do you think would make someone a good Dental Assistant?

Kayla:
Someone who would make a good dental assistant is really someone who enjoys to help people. So one of the best parts about being a registered dental assistant is that we get to help someone gain their confidence back. So, if you’re someone who enjoys helping people who also enjoys having their weekends and their evenings to themselves, but wants to be in healthcare and be part of making a difference, it’s such a great career to get into.

Being able to talk to people, being a people person in general, and then also just someone who wants to have a career and keep going up. There’s so much movement. You can always work your way up. You can get into jobs that are more specialties as well. So if you are looking to do something more so an OR get into surgeries and things like that, there’s always those opportunities as well as even working with an insurance company if that’s something that you’re interested as well. So it’s more than just sitting chair side with your patient. There’s so many other opportunities that come with being a registered dental assistant as well.

So, you say a “registered dental assistant”, does that mean if I’m graduate I’m automatically considered a Registered Dental Assistant?

Kayla:
If you graduate from this program throughout CBBC, you end up being a level two registered dental assistant. You take a board exam that not only allows you to work in your province, it allows you to work anywhere in Canada; it really opens up those doors of opportunity. So yes, you are 100% registered, the highest level you can get as a dental assistant, and it was, well, you can work anywhere within Canada with that training also.

What’s the layout of the program like?

Kayla:
If you come to CBBC as a student, you learn your theory portion while you’re online with us or in class, and then you’ll learn the actual hands-on skills when you come here to our dental clinic or also in your practicum office. So once you learn that skill here, you get to go work with it hands-on in an actual clinic. It really gives you that benefit of practicing that skill in a real-life setting.

You’ll also get the opportunity to work with multiple different dentists, other assistants as well. When you come here for patient clinic. We run a real life dental office with hygienists and dentists who come here for two weeks to work with us and within those two weeks, I call it the finale of the program, but it really takes everything that you’ve learned, gives us kind of a final time to make sure we’ve got it down pat, that you’re comfortable and you go out when you finish and you graduate with all those skills and the confidence that you need to be a registered dental assistant.

The distance program, is actually really interesting and I think it works well. So the first 12 to 14 weeks, you are in class five days a week at your own home or your own location Monday to Friday, 8:30 to 3:00. After those first 12 to 14 weeks, we get to open up and you’ll be on a practicum two days a week at a dental office in your area. So you don’t need to travel far. It can be someone very local and you do two days a week there. That goes on for the remainder of the year up until about 50 weeks. That’s when we finish. Within those weeks though, you do come up to Cape Breton to visit us.

The first one is a one-week stint where you’ll learn all your radiology skills as well as your sterilization. Then you go back home, go back online with us and back into your practicum. Then you’ll come back up with us for two weeks. In that you learn all of the rest of your hands-on skills, all your chair-side skills, your labs, everything like that. Go back to your home. You get to practice those in office at your placement sites, and then at the very end, we get to do that patient clinic, which is like our finale. We get to practice everything that we’ve learned all year with a dentist and hygienist in our clinic, seeing patients from the community, and it really gives us that opportunity to put everything together.

Any advice for someone considering the program?

Kayla:
Really think about what you enjoy doing as a person. If you enjoy helping people, if you enjoy making a change, if you still enjoy your evenings and your weekends to yourself, but as well as being in healthcare, this is such an amazing program and a career choice. I’ve been doing this for over 10 years now, and I would never want to do anything different. I absolutely love it. Your instructors are very enthusiastic and we’re here to help you the entire time. You have our support and my past students will tell you that even after graduation, we are always here for you. So if there’s a time that you’re maybe job hunting or looking to move, you can always reach back out to us and your instructors will always be there to help you. It doesn’t just end when you graduate. You have our support for the remainder of your career as well.