Why you get frustrated with your clinical outcomes
You harness and leverage your knowledge and skills during every procedure, patient consultation and appointment.
Otherwise, what would be the difference between a person on the street and you? Why are you qualified to practice dentistry, and they aren’t? Why do you get that shiny BDS certificate? You’ve proven throughout the last however many years (and exams), that you have the knowledge and aptitude to practice DENTISTRY.
So, why do we still get frustrated with our own clinical ability? When that filling doesn’t look quite right... or you can’t find that MB2 canal... You can know all the theory, you’ve read all the papers and watched all the videos but still find yourself struggling.
You don’t need any more lectures!
The key aspect of skill acquisition that many under-appreciate is the sheer value of repetition. Of course, skills can be developed more easily if one has prior knowledge of the task to be accomplished: Learning to fly a plane through trial and errors without having a slight idea about how planes fly may be quite risky, but theory should be limited to be the minimum required to be able to perform the task.
“Knowledge: “facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject”, or, “awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.”
Skills: “the ability to do something well; expertise”, or, “a particular ability.””
Practice is the only way to develop skills: The more you do something, the better you get at doing it. Knowing does not make you skilled.
Have patience, and take trust in the fact that skills take time to consolidate. You won’t be perfect in dental school. Trust the process, keep working and get the reps in.
