How to Find a Dental Mentor

One of the most challenging, yet exciting, phases of any dental clinician’s career is the transition stage from being a dental student to a fully licensed and registered independent practitioner. It can be daunting as a new graduate to go from having a dentist supervising your every action to now carrying out dental procedures and treatments independently; and more so when you now take on full responsibility for all outcomes. To make this journey smoother, mentorship with a more experienced and knowledgeable dentist becomes key. Unlike a dental supervisor, who is overseeing and taking responsibility for dental students in performing treatments on patients, a mentor is more of an advisor and peer. A dental mentor can be a sounding board and source of collegial support for you, using their own clinical experience and knowledge to support you. The right mentor will be aligned with the direction you want to take with your career and offer guidance on how to achieve those goals.

Have a Clear Career Vision

Before searching for a mentor, it’s important to have a clear vision for your dental career. This includes envisioning what kind of dentistry you wish to do and the skills necessary to execute them well. Envision whether you wish to work in public health dentistry or private practice. The clearer your vision, the easier it will be to find the right mentor. Your vision may change as your career progresses! Read Damian Siderides’ reflection on a dental practitioner’s career path here.

Understand How You Learn

The first step to finding a mentor is to know what your learning style is, well as have a good understanding of your own personality traits. This will help you to explain the way you think, behave and best learn to potential mentors, and give you a better grasp on what type of mentor would suit you best. Having this self-awareness will allow you to better understand others and help find like-minded mentors. A great place to start is an evidence-based learning style and personality trait test.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a widely used personality assessment that categorises individuals into 16 distinct personality types based on four dichotomous preferences:

• Energy

Extraversion (E) / Introversion (I) is how you direct your energy either outwardly or inwardly.

• Information

Sensing (S) / Intuition (N) is how you process information either facts or possibilities.

• Decisions

Thinking (T) / Feeling (F) is how you make decisions either logic or values.

• Structure

Judging (J) / Perceiving (P) is how you approach life either structured or flexibly.

Another framework that can help you understand how you learn is the Multiple Intelligences test, developed by Harvard University psychologist Howard Gardner in 1983. This self-assessment tool proposes intelligence is a combination of at least eight distinct, equally important cognitive abilities, including:

• Verbal/Linguistic: skills in language, reading, writing and speaking.
• Logical/Mathematical: skills in reasoning, patterns and calculations.
• Visual/Spatial: abilities in visualisation and able to manipulate spatial patterns.
• Bodily/Kinesthetic: skills in physical coordination and dexterity.
• Musical: a sensitivity to rhythm, pitch and tone.
• Interpersonal: understanding and interacting effectively with others.
• Intrapersonal: skills in self-awareness and understanding of one’s emotions.
• Naturalist: sensitivity to the natural world and ability to classify species.

Once you have a solid grasp on your learning style and personality traits, you want to find a mentor that aligns with them. In order to find a mentor, you could network at your local Australian Dental Association (ADA) events or visit dental clinics in your area to introduce yourself and ask if they allow shadows. It’s also unrealistic to expect a single mentor will fulfill all the areas you need them to. Be willing to have multiple mentors that can help you grow in different ways.

It’s important to remember that while mentors are great advisors and teachers, they’re also humans. Be sure to share your gratitude and aim to enrich the relationship through showcasing and communicating your growth and development. Throughout your career, you will learn from many different mentors.

Many corporate dental practices, as well as large group private practices, have a curated formalised mentorship programme designed for graduate dentists. These programmes generally cater to supporting learning and growth in your first year of practice and will allow you to meet others in the same stage of their careers. These programmes may also include in-house CPD courses, as well as allotted time for case discussions on a weekly or monthly basis. You can take advantage of these to help plan and discuss patient cases you encounter in your practice.

For smaller practices where there are no formalised mentorship programmes, establishing a mentor relationship can range from shadowing patient treatments, to approaching more senior clinicians to help you through difficult cases and discussions.

Finally, there are also third-party mentorship programmes that you can sign up to. These may be part of CPD courses, while also offering case support and mentorship outside of your practice. Be sure to ask your local ADA state or territory branch to see if they offer a mentorship program for new and recent graduate dentists.

The biggest piece of wisdom I want share when it comes to finding a dental mentor, it's to always remember the 5 Ps framework; Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. After you’ve found a dental mentor to guide you, it’s important to understand how to best leverage their expertise and knowledge for your professional growth. Know how to take great patient records that help with case discussions with your mentor. This includes:

• A complete set of appropriately relevant radiographs,
• A full series of extraoral and intraoral photographs,
• Study models of the patient’s dentition either analog stone models poured up from a manual impression or a digital scan of teeth and bite if your practice has an intraoral scanner.

Building the habit of taking comprehensive records for your patients not only helps develop you as a clinician to be able to better diagnose and treatment plan for cases when patients are no longer in your chair, but ultimately gives you all the necessary information for your mentor to see beyond your blind spots.

Read Dr. David Keir’s 10 lessons for dental growth with mentorship here.

About the Author

Dr Kaejenn Tchia is a dentist based in the Northern Territory. You can follow his work at the Limitless Dentist on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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