How dental anxiety affects your patients

This article originally appeared as the lead news story in the May 2014 issue of ASDA News. To read more from ASDA’s print publication, Contour, click here.

A fearful patient can pose a considerable treatment challenge, especially for dental students who may unintentionally miss signals that their patient is uncomfortable.

Dr. Peter Milgrom, professor of oral health sciences at the University of Washington and founder and former director of its Dental Fears Research Clinic, believes that students lacking clinical experience “tend to completely focus on technical procedures” or “feel under pressure to perform at a certain rate” because of clinic time constrictions or limited rest breaks.

The unintended consequences of private refinancing

There’s a pretty good chance that if you have student loans (and even if you don’t), you have received a flyer or some type of marketing piece describing how much interest you would save if you “refinanced” your student loans. There has been tremendous growth in the private student loan market and with that growth has come lots of marketing that has left recent grads confused and unsure about their debt. This post will discuss various aspects of refinancing your loans with a private lender and some of the potential negative consequences.

How to build a long-lasting relationship with faculty members

Idea and teamwork concept You know how every chef movie has an aspiring sous chef who admires the head chef, but the head chef either doesn’t have the desire or can’t seem to find time to mentor the sous chef? In this regard, the dental profession is no different from the food preparation profession.

Everyone talks about mentor relationships. Some people have them, but would like more. Some people would like to find just one. No matter how you slice it, if you’d like a mentor, you will probably have to do something to initiate the relationship. So how do you go about creating a mentor relationship with a faculty or senior colleague?

When NOT to put money into a retirement account

crunching numbersYou’ve probably heard that you need to start early when it comes to saving for retirement. I often get asked by dental residents (some of which have $450k of outstanding debt) if they should save for retirement while in residency. For your average resident and recent grad, there are some very good reasons NOT to put money into a retirement account. Here are a few…