what are the charecteristics a dentist need?
For a dental student, does he/she need to have good hand skills?
what other skills does a dental student need?
Well... there are no definite characteristics that a dentist needs (unless you want to be successful). Success is measured in different ways. You can want to be the best clinician, businessman, etc... For example, you can be the best clinician in the world, produce great work, be a perfectionist, but if you're going to take forever on a procedure, you will make virtually no money and live on the streets (exaggerated)
A dental student does not need to have good handskills. He or she will develop that eventually.I think critical thinking is more important. The ability to be a more results oriented individual, rather than being set on being procedure-based. Personally, I think that a dental student doesn't need much skills (besides passing courses) when entering and the ability to keep their eye on the prize (and not get caught up in the unnecessary bureaucracies of dental school). There's the "real world" way of doing things and there's the dental school way. The dental school way is too bureaucratic and not realistic.
What skills do I value? The ability to cram and free up much of my time (easy 8-9 weeks, then cram time). Something overlooked a lot is salesmanship. A dentist needs to be a good salesman for your patient to accept your treatment plan. One more thing previously discussed is being able to look at the big picture and remaining results-oriented.
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for dental schools in US, when do you start clinical training on real patients? 2nd year or 3rd year?
do you have to call up patients on your own?
there's like a patient pool where you get patients right?
for any dental students here, have you run into any difficult experiences when looking at patients?
Clinical training starts in your second and third year. It all depends which school you go to. Calling up patients and scheduling depends on the school as well. All three of your questions are school dependent.
I have not run in any difficult experiences looking at patient(s) mouths. When you look at the patient's mouth, you take more of an authoritative figure where you have control of your domain. Some people are too shy or afraid (makes the procedure longer). You'll know when you are hurting the patient, so don't worry about that. Clinical training is a good way to work on your salesmanship abilities =)
Looking for patients depends on what you need to graduate.
