RVDuong Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 I've worked as a dental assistant for quite a while now, for about 3-5 years. I've worked with pediatrics, oral surgeon, general, some orthodontics, etc. Can that go towards my HCE hours? I feel like I've wasted my time in dental assistant but hopefully, find it useful for my admission. The reason I am asking this is because I have no HCE hours besides dental assistant, and if I were to become a CNA, I would have to take a year of CNA classes at my community college to receive my certificate. Help please :'/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PACdan Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 I've worked as a dental assistant for quite a while now, for about 3-5 years. I've worked with pediatrics, oral surgeon, general, some orthodontics, etc. Can that go towards my HCE hours? I feel like I've wasted my time in dental assistant but hopefully, find it useful for my admission. The reason I am asking this is because I have no HCE hours besides dental assistant, and if I were to become a CNA, I would have to take a year of CNA classes at my community college to receive my certificate. Help please :'/ I would contact the schools you are interested in and pose this question to them, if it's not stated somewhere in their program information. Dental patients are, well, patients. But it's not usually the type of medical contact you get in other roles. This is along the lines of someone who has experience in an ophthalmologist's office. I would see how the schools you plan to apply to feel about it. Also, many places will let you work in the role of a CNA or "tech" without requiring a license. An EMT cert can be had in much shorter time and many places let you work with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LESH Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 I agree with PAC Dan. Always contact the program. There used to be data published and sent to the programs on the types of prior health care experience for the enrolling class. Data taken from an AAPA PA student survey I believe. I haven't seen one in a few years, but I'm not in a position to have access either. I do remember that one of the allied health/dental HCE listed was dental assistant. I have also seen a few dental assistants and dental hygienist become PA students, graduate and go on to successful practice as PAs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LESH Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 http://www.paeaonline.org/index.php?ht=a%2FGetDocumentAction%2Fi%2F161775 Info on PA matriculants HCE from PAEA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MedLib42 Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 When I first started looking into applying to PA school, I had been a dental assistant for about ten years (approximately). I found some programs absolutely would not accept it as HCE, but found some that thought it was excellent HCE. What I found that made a huge difference, though, was educating the program on what my duties actually were - for example, I sent an email to U of Iowa asking if they would accept dental assisting as HCE, and they wrote back absolutely not. Their reasoning was that dental assistants "don't actually touch patients". I then sent back a list of my duties, including things like monitoring vitals during sedation; buccal anesthetic swabs prior to injection; surgical prep; placing/removing dressings before, during, and after surgery; removing packing/sutures post-operatively (to name a few). I also made sure to include that I performed all intake (took histories, noted allergies), and patient education (presented and discussed treatment plans, explained and answered questions about the procedures, counseled regarding side effects and potential surgery complications, etc). Also, if we had a post-surg. infection or bleed, I was the first one to see the patient, assess, clean the area, let the dentist know what was going on, and do any prep needed before the he came in. Make sure you list everything like this - every little thing makes a difference. After receiving that list, U of Iowa responded that it would count as outstanding HCE. They also said the determination that a lot of schools make regarding quality of your HCE is going to depend greatly on the duties you list in CASPA, more so than the actual job title. If you list a lot of hands-on, patient centered duties, you'll have a better chance at a lot of schools, even with dental assisting. Definitely contact the schools and see what they think - make sure you include some of your duties, and hopefully you'll get some positive responses. By the time I applied, it was a lot later (life happened), and I then had other medical HCE. However, I was told at various interviews that my dental assisting HCE was unusual and impressive. If you're able to find that the schools you're interested in will accept your DA experience, I would still highly recommend augmenting it with some medical volunteer work in various areas - hospitals, underserved clinics, and so on, doing whatever you possibly can. That way, you will at least have some exposure to a regular medical environment as well. And of course, plenty of shadowing - both PA and MD (or DO). Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whoRyou Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 This ^^^ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator EMEDPA Posted December 5, 2014 Moderator Share Posted December 5, 2014 CNA is 80 hours of training. if you look around you can find 2 week or 1 month intensive courses. EMT-basic is 120 hrs. ditto the quickie courses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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