Soft Skills & Dental Assistants

The range of duties that a dental assistant performs in a dental clinic are pretty wide. From assisting the dentist in procedures to counseling patients and what not. Let us tell you this that a good dental assistant is a perfect synergy between logic and empathy.

He is the one who interacts with patients more than anyone else in the dental clinic, therefore his presentation and communication skills are vital for a superior patient care and a better service experience. Today we will be exploring the role of soft skills as a professional trait in dental assistants.

Undergoing a dental assistants training program is, in fact, an academic themed course and owing to the nature of the work it has to be like that. A dental assistant essentially has to be technically very sound and there is no room for errors as far as this training goes. It's obvious too as you are dealing with the healthcare of humans. However, having said that we also need to understand this that since we are dealing with humans, keeping the communication channels open goes a long way in determining the overall service experience of the patient.

What are soft skills?

Soft Skills are interpersonal, psychological, self-promoted and non-technical qualities for every practitioner and academician. (source:ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). Soft Skills are basically a collection of skills which help you understand and communicate with others in a better way. It also boosts your self-confidence and radiates an aura of trust and faith amongst the people you are interacting with. Now, this is essential when it comes to dealing with patients in a dental clinic. You as a dental assistant need to understand the issues of the patient, and also at the same time you need to make them aware of the requisite information of the procedure and other elements of the treatment that they require.

“According to the survey of North America, Organizational Culture and motivational fit is more towards 31% and critical reasoning and judgment with interpersonal behavior is 21% and 26% respectively. Technical skills contributes around 12% and 10% of relevant experience” (source:ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

From the information above you can easily judge the importance of soft skills for a dental assistant. Hard skills are essential but you just can't ignore the soft skills. They are the one which once in synergy with your technical expertise will take you places and make you earn more. Hard Skills (tech knowledge) can give you a head start, but it's the soft skills that will make your career as a dental assistant grow at a steady pace.

To summarize this article we would say that developing soft skills will make you a better Team player, boost your self confidence, enhance your communication skills, will help you develop empathy towards your patients, arm you with superior time management skills,make you proactive and above all give you professional flexibility and stress management capabilities. These are the skills which will keep you motivated and also help you in striking the perfect work-life balance.