During the time of completing my capstone stone project I had to do a lot of thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity in order to complete it. The piece that really required a lot of thinking was me even deciding on a topic to do the essay on. I really wanted it to be something interesting but felt like their was nothing interesting I could choose that was interesting in this career. I spoke to my mentor about it and she had a lot of ideas but the one that seemed to stick out to me the most was her talking about how many people walk into her office everyday and either have or are on the verge of getting gingivitis. Now that I had an idea of what I wanted to do it on I began to ask my mentor more questions about what' goes on in the office and why we even need to go in to see the dentist every six months. Finally I decide since she had told me brushing and flossing won't get the job done to keep your pith healthy I would combine talking about disease that can occur in your mouth and how brushing and flossing couldn't get rid of them.another key thing in this project was communication. At first I was very shy to even talk to my mentor but then I realized if I didn't talk to her I wasn't going to be able to get anything done. Another big reason why I needed to use communication was because I had to talk with a lot of the patients and my mentor knew I was shy so she really pushed me to do so. Collaboration took place when my mentor was helping me come up with a topic to write my essay on. Lastly we used creativity when also picking an essay topic the wasn't boring to read about.
One thing I feel like I gained from this project was me becoming sociable. I feel like when I first started coming into the office and being around the office I was scared to speak because I was I afraid my mentor might think the questions I was asking were dumb. I was scared to speak to the patients because I thought they might consider me a bother. By the end of the project I found my self asking more questions and becoming confident when I spoke with patients. I feel like me becoming less shy help me both personally and socially. I feel like this helped me personally because I use to be to shy to do just about anything. For example I was way to shy to order my own food at restaurants, call places to make appointments, or during school when teachers let you choose your own groups I wouldn't ask anyone to let me be in their group. This project helped me gain a new type of confidence and I'm happy I got to do it.
A challenge that I remembered in particular when going into this project was me having to see my mentor give her patients shots because I hate them so much. I remember telling my mom I didn't want to go int to even see my mentor for this reason. This was also one of the things that determined wether I wanted to pursue this as a career or not. I over came this challenge by just sucking it up and watch the process happen to the patient. My mentor handled her giving the the shot like it was nothing she knew what she was doing and she got it done quick. I thought to myself if she could do it I could so it and eventually I got over it. Another challenge I had to overcome was like I said before me being so shy. In this career you can not be shy you have to be talking to people all day. Communicating is huge part of this job it is how you know what is going on with your patient and during the work you do on the patient it is a way to keep your pairing clam. Me begging to talk more was not just something that came easily. I hade to get more comfortable with the environment first and before I knew I found myself chatting away with everyone in the office.
Overall I really like the outcome of having to do this project. I think this project made me grow more as a person and mature a little. It really helped me with my future because I have decided I really want to be a dental hygienist. I love the atmosphere of being in an office and I like the feeling you get when you help people. The satisfaction of knowing you helped someone is a great feeling which I hope to receive all the time once I graduate and become a dental hygienist.
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