Leah Moua – Dental Internship

Hi! My name is Leah Moua and this semester I had the opportunity to be an intern at Garden Spot Dental Care. I go to the office three days a week, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. So far, it has been an amazing experience for me and I have learned so much. All the staff have shown kindness and provided a wonderful work environment.

During the beginning of my internship, I didn’t have a specific role in the office since I wasn’t trained in anything. A normal day would consist of shadowing dental assistants and hygienists. Since I was leaning toward hygiene for my future career, I spent a lot of time observing the hygienists and learning their daily routines. They taught me many things from perio charting to sharing their personal experiences in hygiene school. As time went by, I started to get a feel of the place and wanted to know how to do more and contribute to the team. I started to learn how to set up rooms for crown inserts and flip rooms after patients.

Setting up rooms for crowns consists of getting the right cassette of instruments and the patient’s new permanent crown. It’s easier for the assistants if rooms are already set so they can just bring in the patients and work on them right away. My other job duty is to flip rooms after patients. It’s very important that everything is cleaned thoroughly and put away back to how it was. On down times when I am not needed, I check which rooms need to be stocked with items such as gloves, water/air tips, etc. Everything that we need is located in the sterilization room where everything is cleaned up and sterilized completely.

This opportunity has given me much more knowledge about what I want to do in the future. I’ve learned more about the teeth, the different diseases you can get with little to no brushing, the tools used to clean teeth, and so much more. For my career, I knew that I wanted to do something that involved dentistry, whether it was to become a dental hygienist or a dentist. With the help of the staff they have shared many experiences and recommended many schools that had great programs for both.

I am grateful to say that this internship has been a great start to my college career and I’m thankful to the people who helped me reach this goal. As I am soon graduating, a skill that I need for the future is branching out and this internship has helped me a lot with that. I still have much to learn from this internship and I will continue to do my best so I can reach my dream career.