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Dental Student Edition – Ace your Finals exams – PDP013

This episode is for all dental students, but particularly those in 4th and 5th year. I was joined by my friend Prateek Biyani who runs an awesome resource for students at Dental Notebook (check it out!)

Need to Read it? Check out the Full Episode Transcript below!

Protrusive Dental Pearl: If you’re a Dental student, I recommend attending the Dentinal Tubules Student Congress. It is jam packed with great speakers and really fits well with students. GREAT value and I wish we had something like this when I was a student!

Our aim was to give away all our tips and advice that helped us during finals. We cover:

  • MCQs App 9:06
  • Key books that helped us 8:30
  • Importance of study clubs 6:21
  • Great resources 7:46
  • SoundNote app 10:33
  • Integrating evidence base in to your answers 15:50
  • Top tips for OSCEs 17:14
  • How to do well in a Seen patient or Finals patient exam 24:01

If you found this useful, be sure to share it with your dental student colleagues.

Good luck everyone!

Click below for full episode transcript:

Opening Snippet: You should in all honesty, you should be quite proud of what you're presenting. This is your best clinical work in dental school that you've been working on for however long...

Jaz’s Introduction: This episode is dedicated students because I remember all too well. Being a student and how nervous, me and my flatmates were, we had this sick feeling to the core in our stomachs. So this one’s dedicated for you guys. So you can smash your dental exams. And I’ve got today with me, Prateek Biyani, who is a total whiz and like computers and stuff. Me and him made an app together called food for teeth once one time and he did really all the hard work towards it. He’s fantastic with computers and very intelligent guy. He’s very well exams and that’s why we thought we’d come together and share some of the tips. So this episode is jam packed with lots of different tips to help you you know from discussing example OSCE questions, how to set yourself up for a good OSCE tips for us to get through our finals, how I utilize technology, how Prateek utilize post it notes, so he was a very old school in some things and what to do when you don’t know the answer. And an the importance of not worrying about small details, as well as body language. So we can discuss all these sorts of things. So you can smash your dental exams. Some of this will be relevant to any upcoming DFT interview as well. But really, this episode is specifically focused towards exams. I actually recorded this episode months and months ago, but I want to release it, you know, when the academic term started or after December so now obviously we’re in October right now, so I hope you enjoy it there. The Protrusive Dental pearl is also therefore dedicated to students because I imagine none of my usual dentist listeners are listening to this episode just pretty much marketed, specifically for students. So dental students who haven’t listen to my podcast before welcome, it’s all about, it’s a lot to do with occlusion, but it’s a lot of general dental stuff to help people out and so I love doing. So this episode hopefully will help you in your journey. So the Protrusive Dental pearl for this episode once more is if you’re a dental student, okay, and you want to do well and you want to mix the right people I strongly recommend look into attending, the Dentinal Tubules student Congress, if you know someone a year above you who went last year, just ask them. It is jam packed with great speakers. And it’s really at the real pitch at the right level for students. And Dentinal Tubules has a great ethos, it’s usually held a week before the main Dentinal Tubules congress. I think in 2020, it will be around about end of September mid September 2020. So watch out for that one. I’ll post it on my Instagram and Facebook when the time is right. My Protrusive Dental pearl for today is to join and look out for the student Congress for Dentinal Tubules, you really set you apart and you will learn so much. So that’s my main pearl. So let’s dive right into the episode, me and Prateek. And I’ll join you for the outro. Hope you enjoy.

Main Interview:

[Jaz]
Prateek, tell us about yourself. And I will then maybe say a few things as to why I invited you on the show tonight and why I think you’re a great person to speak about, you know, Exam Success. So Prateek, tell us about yourself.

[Prateek]
Yep. So I graduated in 2016. From the University of Sheffield, a couple of years junior to yourself. I then went and did my FD in Halifax for a year. And then since then I’ve been doing DCT jobs. So I did DCT one and maxfacts in Sheffield, and I’m currently in DCT two job and just feeling maxfacts again.

[Jaz]
Awesome. And tell us about your website.

[Prateek]
So yeah, in I think it was in third year of dental school, I started a website called dental notebook, mainly because I felt I was gathering quite a few revision notes as I was going through dental school, I thought it’d be useful to share these with other students. So I thought I’d create a central resource for students to access revision notes, or the little hints and tips for exams, scenarios, OSCE tips, things like that. And since then, it’s just grown. And I’ve had guest posts from yourself, from other guys around the country contributing to and just a database of knowledge, essentially,

[Jaz]
You know when something I do on a weekly basis. Now I type in IOTN on Google Images. And you know, your website comes off in number one, number one, right? But it was teeth geek that donated that about a website.

Unknown Speaker

[overlapping conversation] [Jaz]
I mean, you have the similar background that we know we wanted to share information at the time of students. And it’s great that you’re keeping that up. So and that’s one of the reasons I’ve invited you on today because I think you’re a great person to speak about that. Also, you know, you’ve been quite modest, you haven’t really said the other things, but you’re a, you know, high achieving honors distinction as well?

[Prateek]
Not in the ultimate degree. But along the way.

[Jaz]
Along the way. You know, you get lots of distinctions and honors overall. And I remember you were always a high achiever at dental school, so guess I’ll have to mention it because there is some credibility as to why we’re doing this and I got 100% in the clinical examination in Sheffield, which I think was never been done before. Yeah, and got distinction clinical exams overall. And I like to think that my scores are quite good and but it’s important to mention that because you think these two random dentists is talking about exams. But you know, we do, me and you were very studious, I suppose. We like to really understand and grasp every element. And I think me and you can share some really good easy tips to help elevate people’s exam scores and get them their degree, but not only their degree, but get them retaining information better towards their exams and having good experience.

[Prateek]
I think that’s the more important thing because you’re not just passing exams, it’s your career, it’s what you’re doing. Long term. So you need to be happier. You understand everything, you grasp everything.

[Jaz]
Exactly. So let’s dive right in, Prateek. So a two things. Okay? There’s the academic part of every Dental Degree in the UK. That is, is it fair to say you can say right, first half is academic and second half is clinical, we can let you know first half the podcast, let’s talk about how we can get our listeners, this students to get top scores in their academic exams? And the second half, we can focus on clinical. SO academic, okay, shot, how can students emulate the type results that you know, the honors students get?

[Prateek]
I think one of the most important things is everyone’s very different in how they learn. And in first year, one of my biggest emphasis was on basically put on finding the best where to learn University information. Because through school, through college, whatever it may be, you learn very differently, the exams are very different. But what as soon as you come to university, the way you sit exams, I remember we had one mock in first year to give us a bit of an idea of what the exams would be like, you’re never quite sure how to go about preparing for them, how to go about revising. So that’s one of the really important things, early on identifying how you work and how best to return information. And some things that I’ve done myself. And I know that most of my colleagues have done, repetition, although it’s often frowned upon. And for me, that worked quite well. And it’s not failed me all these years. And even things like study groups. I remember, me and a few of my colleagues, we had weekly study group that we did near exam time. And that way you can feed off each other. And like I said, Everyone has a different way of learning.

[Jaz]
I found that incredibly useful. Group of us coming together, four or five, you don’t want anything too big.

[Prateek]
Exactly.

[Jaz]
Anything once a week in the library, we call it geek club. It was good. You know, it was even like when you come to, obviously final year, and you’ve got the DF one interview, so you know, you can use it for that element as well. So yeah, study groups and finding out how you learn. Yep, absolutely.

[Prateek]
And having plenty of resources. I mean, you’ve got your friends, you’ve got tutors, you have easy access to them, but also appropriate textbooks. I know, in first year, a lot of people see reading lists and like, I need this, I need that. But it’s picking out maybe asking a senior what is, what do, I actually do remember speaking to you about certain textbooks and things and you give me advice on what might be suitable for me to learn from. But I think the best books I bought through dental school are the MCQ and SCQ books. Because ultimately, that is what reinforced my revision and prepared me for exams. So it’s definitely something that I’d advise people to get, even if you just get one between your study group or whatever it may be. They’re very, very important and very, very useful.

[Jaz]
The one I recommend, I suppose, we’re jumping on that a bit, because it is clinical, but it’s got lots of academic references as well. Because you can always get short answer questions. Is it the clinical problem solving in dentistry? I believe it was Odell?

[Prateek]
Yeah, absolutely. One of the best books I’ve just been talking to some final years. And that is the first book I recommend to them. Even I have on my own, I will always, always recommend that because it is a fantastic book. I myself really, really struggled with [vibers?]. And they were really daunting. So when I struggled, that was the book that basically prepared me for it. And yeah, highly recommend it.

[Jaz]
Brilliant. And what technology? I mean, did you utilize technology when you were learning or revising for exams?

Unknown Speaker
I did for some things. So there are because the issue with technology is it’s changing. So quickly, there were some apps that I used to use that no longer exist. There is one MCQ app that is very good, that does still exist. And it’s American one. It’s a dental boards mastery app that you can get. And that is essentially an MCQ bank questions. And you can go through it or record your performance on the kind of 10, 20 question exams, whatever you want to do. You can mark which questions you want to go back to, which topics you find difficult. So I found that quite useful. There were other MCQ apps at the time and if I say is continuously changing, the new ones come and then some will vanish. And then just websites I remember. There’s the for example, if you’re in first year tooth morphology is really difficult. There’s a Leeds University website that kind of has lots of pictures, you can look through aspects of morphology for teeth and kind of grasp a bit better. There are apps out there. It’s quite a niche area, though, I think, in terms of dentistry to find the right ones to help you. There are general things like, there, there are lots of flashcard apps that you can use. Some people like to use those for revision. So yeah, it’s finding again, what is best suited to your need.

[Jaz]
I think the reason why I got such high marks from about like, especially third year onwards, for me, it was down to one app. Okay? And it’s a general app. Okay. So it’s called, and there’s many like it. My one was called soundnote, and I still use this day. Okay? It basically the way it works is I’m there typing away notes, okay. And, as a lecturer speaking, I’m sort of almost typing what they’re saying, or my own version. Yeah. But at the same time, as me typing is recording the audio. Now, this is not revolutionary. But this is a way to work smart or revise smart, instead of sometimes having to go through the entire lecture, or people who record their lectures on dictaphones. And listening to the whole damn thing. You sometimes just want to know what the speaker said about one small that happened around the 32nd minute or something, you just you just don’t know that for you, you know, open up the lecture. So sometimes, you know, I brought in things like this bit is really important. Listen to this for exams. And I come back to it when I’m revising. I clicked on that edge and it revealed all the answers. So that’s a great way to revise smart, obviously, you have to check what your university rules and regulations are in terms of recording lectures and whatnot. So that’s, you know, something that needs to be checked upon. But for me, I think that’s been my biggest success story, only because it saved me hours when revising. And also, I found that the lecturers are the same people who end up marking you in those exams. And if you’re listening back to their voice, and the key important bits, and then you’re writing that, or you’re speaking that in your Viber, they’ll give you the mark [overlapping conversation]. So they know you pay attention. But you know, it’s like playing for their ego. You’re saying the phrases in the way that they said it And they’re like, yes, this guy, because everyone thinks they know what they have to say is the best. So that, for me is a massive tip in terms of an app. So the one I, it’s soundnote, and I’ll put the link at the bottom of this podcast. So that’s a good generic app as well, as well as obviously a flashcard methods are quite good what you said.

[Prateek]
I know. Another common one is Evernote. You can do audio, you can draw, you can type notes, whatever. And it’s available across all devices. So that I have used that in the past not so much recently. That is another good one.

[Jaz]
Seeing me as me and you have been qualified for a few years now. Maybe there’s some really awesome apps, and we just may well be. But hey, you know it’s something to get people started to utilize technology. Before I go on and give another tip in terms of academic What else have you got in terms of getting good results in the written exams?

[Prateek]
I think, kind of going on from what we’ve discussed when it was getting closer to exams. You mentioned a rather than spending ages trying to go through an entire lecture picking out the the most important bits are the bits that you’re forgetting, things that I found useful, are lots of post it notes. I know that whilst going around my flat, if there’s somewhere I’d go really often, I would have a post it note off something I couldn’t remember, sat there. And that would kind of hammer home the messages to me. And that was more relevant for theory compared to the practical things. Because that’s theory is where most of that knowledge is, you know, you’re having to remember those really awkward facts or that long list of bullet points or whatever it may be. So just helping with retention, that as well as lots of colors, kind of keep you interested on those, those drab long sheets of a4 if you have colors. And I know some people’s minds work that way, where they’ll remember what colors were where, or what pictures were where. And those I found really helpful in terms of remembering key facts.

[Jaz]
And I’ll tell you one way maybe see if you agree with me one way not to do it. And that was a lot of people in my year when it came to revising the finals, went all the way back to their first year note. Right? And they were reading like, through first year stuff, second year stuff, third year stuff. Now, fair enough, some exams, some dental schools may involve, you know, large chunks of it. But to be fair, reflecting back, finals was 80%, 90%, fourth and fifth year stuff. It’s not that you shouldn’t go through it. But you should really keep it short and sweet and simple for when you’re going to the earlier is

[Prateek]
Absolutely. The way I looked at is was that first and second of the information is the foundation for what you’re doing now. It’s really that stuff should be within you somewhere. And I remember going down and like going back to the notes and like you said basically cutting everything out and only picking the odd slide or the odd thing that i thought you know that’s going to be useful to take forward and remember Yeah, going back. I know Some of my colleagues as well went back and went through all the lectures and everything. And it’s time that you can use on something more productive.

[Jaz]
Exactly. And if you’re really stressed, and you feel as though you haven’t given enough time, and you’ve got a short deadline, then you know, be clever about it, just go through the 4th and 5th year stuff, but I don’t recommend doing it that way. But if you’re really strapped for time that I would, at least a point.

[Prateek]
Ultimately, like you say, 80 90% is that fourth and fifth year, and that should technically be enough to get you through the written exams anywhere. So yeah, if worst case scenario, that’s the focus.

[Jaz]
Anything else, Pratkeek? On the how much more you go for the academic? I’ve got another one more thing.

[Prateek]
That’s it for my OSCEs and stuff.

[Jaz]
Okay. Now, I don’t know what you did during your written exams, Prateek, but what I did actively, when I was answering questions in the written exams, I was referencing papers. Were you?

[Prateek]
Yeah, so in my, when it came to finals, I created a little document kind of list of all the evidence for everything that I could find, whilst I was revising. So I use that not only for written, but even when it came to my, for example, patient case presentations and things, I kind of tried putting that in there just for the extra marks that so and so said this about, you know, the evidence what I’m doing, because ultimately, again, we need to show evidence based practice. And so for the extra marks for those little bonus marks, if you can retain some evidence, I think that’s completely good way to go about it.

[Jaz]
So you know, I’d write, you know, Gibson, 2011, PTJ, or whatever for, for whatever, you know, so that was a good way to do it. Now, you don’t need to remember every single paper and whatnot, I think just the key ones, like major systematic reviews, you know, you don’t have to remember all these in-vitro studies, maybe just sometimes in the lecture slides, you’ll notice that they reference, you know, a paper, and you can, you know, each theme to remember one paper is more than enough, and it’s not mandatory at all, I know a lot of people got loads of good marks who didn’t reference any papers, but it sort of backs you up. And it’s, you know, it’s not wanting to lose any marks. I think it’s a good thing to have, obviously.

[Prateek]
Absolutely. Agree with that.

[Jaz]
Right. So clinicals. And the main two things talk about, I suppose, are OSCEs, and the Finals patient, right? Please tell me what tips and advice you have to get through the clinical exams.

[Prateek]
I mean, in terms of OSCEs, I remember, we had, again, a mock one in first year that I had never experienced OSCE in my life, I was terrified. But I took it back to the basics of any exam, be systematic, be logical, and try to keep a clear head in what you’re doing. You everything that comes up on an OSCE, you will have come across at some point, you will have studied it in some way. So it’s making sure that you just think through your question, you don’t look at a question and immediately panic, that, oh, I haven’t revised this, or I haven’t covered this in X number of months, or whatever it may be. So just make sure you keep a clear head between stations, if something’s gone wrong, you don’t take that forward to the next station, you try to forget about it. And new station is completely different. And one of the biggest things that I can’t emphasize enough is practicing. There are some people have the mindset that you can’t practice for an OSCE, that you can’t, you know, like a communication scenario, it just comes to you naturally. But practicing these things gets you very, very far. And it comes back to what we were saying about doing study clubs and things like that you can practice these things with your friends. And you often pick up on things that they do that you don’t necessarily do, and feed off again, off each other’s knowledge, how you approach stations, that can only better your performance in OSCE type situations.

[Jaz]
Like an actor station, for example. Easily in practice.

[Prateek]
Yeah. And a lot of people forget basic things like nonverbal communication. And I know that even is relevant in clinical non-actor related stations as well in how you’re communicating with your examiner. If it’s just you one on one with the examiner, how are you articulating yourself, how you explain? Are you explaining things clearly? You know, are you not very confident about what you’re saying? Or is there some confidence behind whatever you’re discussing clinically, because that, again, shows what you’re like as a clinician. So if you’ve practice things, if you’ve gone through things, you’re more likely to be confident you’re more right.

[Jaz]
And if you keep arming, you know, you, you lose that magic about you lose about you, and I think it reflects on your overall mark. I think I remember during OSCEs, there was an OSCE station where we had to just very simply explained to a patient that the patient had periodontal you know, chronic periodontal disease. And you know what the most obvious way that most students lost marks? Can you guess, you know, imagine you’re at the station, which is the way in which students can lose the marks ie which important piece of information did the students omit?

[Prateek]
Risk factors jargon? Are you using jargon or?

[Jaz]
Jargon for sure, that’s on every station you’ve got to avoid jargon, but the main ones actually forgetting To mention to the patient that actually you’re going to get some sensitivity afterwards. And you’re going to get something called recession when your gum lift. “Mrs. Jones, it’s better to have a long tooth than a tooth no longer. Youcan say that with a smile on your face. And yeah, you make it. Make your tutor laugh. You know, you say with confidence, and you know, you bring your personality into it. Yeah, it’s only gonna get you lots of marks.

[Prateek]
No, absolutely. And I think that a lot of that comes from the practicing bit of things, if you just go in there having, thinking that whatever you do on clinic is right? More often than not, as we’re probably all guilty often on clinic, we end up slipping here and there, we develop a way of explaining something that may not necessarily be exam correct. So that’s where the practicing bit and picking up on things that you may not necessarily, you shouldn’t necessarily be doing in an exam is kind of filtered out of you.

[Jaz]
And the other thing I had put OSCEs was for the clinical stations on or even like, pathology stations, for example, or any aspect of it. I think there’s only two sorts of things that will come up in OSCE. Either these things are common, or they’re important. For example, oral cancer always come up. Always. I can’t imagine a UK Dental Degree in fourth and fifth year where oral cancer will not be one of the 10 stations.

[Prateek]
It has to be in there.

[Jaz]
So whether it’s communication aspect of it, whether it’s the pathology, any aspect risk factors, you name it. So revise the important and the common ones. Now, I remember in my finals, the ortho peed station was a midline, supernumerary. And you get presented with this photograph of maybe like an eight year old and they’ve got one upper central incisor erupted, and the other one sort of not erupted. And then you saw look at a radiograph or, you know stuff there’s a supernumerary. All the thing is, as a student, you’re like, completely unsure of how to manage that. But they don’t need you to be an orthodontist or a specialist pediatric dentist to able to answer that, as long as as a GDP, you can recognize it. And you can say that this affects this percentage people when it’s not so common. And what would you do, I would refer to hospital for a joint ortho pediatric opinion. That’s all they’re asking of you.

[Prateek]
It’s all about safety, and being competent at the level you’re at. And I know, I’m in a similar situation to what you’re explaining where you might not know what to do. And I’ve been asked quite a few times when I’ve when I’ve asked a student, or what would you prescribe for something? And they’re like, Oh, I don’t, I don’t know. And I just as I say to them, like, if you don’t know, don’t lie in your exam, and just be honest, that you don’t know but see how you would kind of remedy that. So I would go and check the BNF to see what medication to prescribe in this situation. So at least it shows you’re being safe, you’re not guessing what to prescribe and you’re still managing the patient’s problems by going and finding a solution. So knowing everything isn’t end of the world, and they wouldn’t be surprised if you knew everything, it’s about being safe, being able to just go out as a beginner. Beginner, as they say, into practice and managing patient.

[Jaz]
Yep. And the very, very bottom, the very, very basic of all things that need to be uncompromisingly sufficient, is medical emergencies. So that’s the only real time I can remember anyone sort of failing really, or something really obvious, like, in a patient with very obvious dentures dermatitis, and you just don’t, you know, pick up despite being given hint, and you don’t pick up on it. So that, you know, unless they wouldn’t fail anyone in the clinical exams unless you A) make a medical emergencies related mistake that can endanger your patient or B) miss a very obvious, even like a common clinical condition that you know, every dentist like it’s like missing Gingivitis, a denture stomatitis, missing an ulcer, which is, you know, clearly and also,

[Prateek]
Again that just shows you’re in safe, doesn’t it? Like you’re not fit to?

[Jaz]
So it’s important, you know, instead of just revising pemphigus, pemphigoid the whole time, just look over the basic things and make sure you know, you can imagine yourself as a general practitioner in practice and seeing the most common pathologies.

[Prateek]
Common things are common, you know.

[Jaz]
Common things are common exactly. Anything else got for OSCEs, before we move on to finals?

[Prateek]
Nope, that’s everything.

[Jaz]
I’ve got finals patient in Sheffield. You know, we see this finals patient over how many over months or years for me, I saw one with for over two and a half years, I had some friends who saw their patients just four weeks. And complete the course treatment because you know, that was the only patient that they could sort of meet the criteria. And they did really well, as well. The way it works is you get five minutes to present, your patient whilst two examiner is looking in the mouth and looking through the notes. And to fair, they weren’t even listening. Do you remember that? They weren’t even focusing more on the patient and having a look at the treatment and the photographs, right? And then they take it aside and they sort of grill you for like five minutes or 5, 10 minutes on various aspects. And I imagine there’s a component like that in most dental schools. So What tips do you have for the students about this, you know, final patient or clinical type scenario?

[Prateek]
Yeah, I think to be honest, this this is relevant to any level dental students. The earlier you kind of identify these patients and start working them up as a potential finals patient, the better it is. So as soon as you see a patient, you think they’re going to need a range of treatment that they may be suitable for your final exam, it’s quite useful to start taking photographs and start studying models things like even if it’s in second and third year. But the way I saw this exam was, it was probably apart from a finals person, probably the exam where you have the most control as the student, you essentially dictated what the exam would be like, in the sense that this was your patient, your treatments, you knew that you should know the patient inside out, you know, that notes completely back to front. And so it was the exam where you could kind of direct the examiners, and you could prepare in all aspects possible. So the biggest things for this particular exam, in my opinion worth I said, knowing your patient inside out and what treatments you’ve done. If you’ve and to be honest, everyone will have made some mistakes, or will have looked back and forth. And maybe that treatment wasn’t the best. And if you identify things like that thinking of what could you have done better and reflecting on it? Because reflection is a lot of

[Jaz]
And there’s no such thing you can’t actually do anything wrong. You can’t do anything wrong, as long as you say, Oh, you know what, if I could go back in time, I wish I’d done the root planning, root service department first before I done that filling because now you can see so ugly recession, I wish I didn’t do it that way, you know, you’re not gonna fail at all.

[Prateek]
To be honest, I think the simpler cases that tick the boxes are the better cases, because you’ve got less to trip upon. I know, I’ve heard situations of where there’s been final patients with really complex dental treatment have had multiple crowns, fancy bridges, this, that and the other. But when it actually comes to answering questions about the clinical work that’s been done, students haven’t been able to explain what they’ve done and why they’ve done it. So having you know, a patient where I don’t know they’ve been anxious, they’ve been referred for some perio treatment, you’ve done some simple and maybe some complex cons or maybe an endo on them, or given them a denture that is a far simpler case to explain to show an improvement in their general oral health, which is the bottom line of this exam. Those are easier to discuss with the examiners. And as a student, when you’re going to be really anxious in this exam I think that will make your life so much easier, being able to have that confidence in what you’ve done.

[Jaz]
Absolutely. It’s a really good tip there. Pick something not too complicated. So the rule is, every patient every time take photographs, from second year, third year, there’s nothing to lose maybe a bit of time, but you probably will lost that anyway, you’re probably waiting for tutor. So you take photos, because I think one of the reasons why I did so well in my finals patient is I my photos are phenomenal. Not in terms of because I didn’t take them as a photographer that comes in Sheffield and picks them for you. It’s the before and after. Because before he literally didn’t know what a toothbrush looked like. Okay. And then just the oral hygiene improvement, I think just automatically was a pass. I think just by looking at that. So if you’ve got some profound difference in the before and afters, you know, so you know, I think if you see a patient really bad oral hygiene, that’s a goldmine, you know, get some photographs on that, work on oral hygiene and just do some basic perio, restoration, a crown. And literally, that’s all you need.

[Prateek]
Yeah. Absolutely agree with that. And like we’ve both said, identifying these people early on, the earlier the better, because the longer you have to, you know, figure out a good treatment plan for them, get things in order. Like you, my finals patient was someone I’d seen at the start of third year. And I think it was my first week of third year. So that had given me a good two and a half years worth of time to work on their oral health. And I think to be honest, that gave me more to talk about in my exam and to reflect on than someone who had got a patient four weeks before. So yeah, identifying them early is a big bonus, I think.

[Jaz]
Yeah. And if my flatmates are listening to this, then I’ll tell you something funny. I was so worried about something so stupid. It’s not funny. Basically, his pocket charting okay revealed that he had 30% of his pockets, right? That were four millimeters or more. So what classification of chronic periodontitis is he?

[Prateek]
Is it at the board?

[Jaz]
Is it localized or generalized? [overlapping conversation] pulling my hair out like oh my God, Is it localized? Is it generalized?? Guess what? No one cares. No one asked. I spent like a whole day worrying about this googling every single thing I could, asking five different perio tutors, and all their answers like doesn’t really matter as long as you manage it properly.

[Prateek]
It’s like when you start looking at your radiographs too long and you like, caries?

[Jaz]
Yeah, very much so. So don’t overcomplicate it, okay? They really don’t need you to have it too. That nth degree. So definitely, you know, keep it simple. And you’re, you know, some people obviously, some dental schools do case submissions on paper, that’s fine. Some dental schools do actual like, you know, viber type presentations. If you’re doing a viber type presentation, then you should be so well rehearsed in that, that it literally should be a slam dunk. Okay? You should, if you’re not good speaker, get out there. You know, there’s plenty of online video courses on how to speak complete, you know, Ted Talks, that sort of stuff, just become good speaker. And that will really elevate your the message that you’re trying to send your confidence that you use. And that’s a great tip to just polish up your presentation skills.

[Prateek]
Because again, that gives you one less thing to worry about in your exam. And it’ll make you more comfortable and more confident in what you’re saying.

[Jaz]
And smiling as well. You can walk into exams smile at the tutors like Good morning. For me, “It was good morning, Prof. Martin, Prof. Rod, how are you today?” They will, they looked at me though, they were taken aback that I’ve never seen such a smiley student on their exam day. And I think that really rubbed off. And they saw that, okay, this guy’s really confident. So, you know, it’s scary, was very scary. But I think it puts you in a good place in terms of mentally.

[Prateek]
I mean, I think you should, in all honesty, you should be quite proud of what you’re presenting, this is your best clinical work in dental school that you’ve been working on for however long. So I think there should be a degree of pride, you know, this is what this is a patient that I’m hoping to get me through and make me a dentist. So I think that in your mind, mentally, if that motivates you that should be something that you kind of look towards.

[Jaz]
And one last tip I have for the finals patient is when you’re giving the story or when you’re maybe right in the background, you have to, they really love it when you bring the social history into it. They were like, “Look, ideally, you know, we’d like to do it this way but we have to take it slow, these nervous patients we have to climate ties, we have to take into consideration that this patient travels from a long way. So that’s why we did longer treatments” and you know, whatever you can say, to show that you really listened to your patient. And you cater, you saw the treatment is very, very personalized or customized to that patient. They really, really respect and value that

[Prateek]
Yeah, I had a similar situation. My finals patient was quite an anxious lady. And she also smoked quite heavily. And at that time I showed the examiners a graphite drawn off of smoking levels and how they’d fluctuated and I basically said, Look, if you kept increasing this smoking levels, every time she was stressed in life, and then we brought it back down, then she gets stressed and go up. And they quite liked that I’d made that association with her life. And you know, it’s not just the teeth. I’m looking at her overall as a patient.

[Jaz]
Yeah, exactly. If you just say that, look, me and Mrs. Smith, you know, we’ve had a chap, but there’s a lot going on at home. And as well as you know, it’s important to give smoking cessation, we have to treat the patient as a whole and they love that sort of stuff. You know, when you say.

[Prateek]
Yeah, absolutely.

[Jaz]
Anything to wrap it up to find final tips for students sitting there finals or dental exams?

[Prateek]
Sounds stupid, but don’t get too stressed. In hindsight, I think we all get a bit stressed for finals,

[Jaz]
I was freaking out, man.

[Prateek]
It’s all that work you’ve done for so many years. But try to relax yourself as much as possible. Take time out for yourself away from revision. And if you work 20 well, not 24 hours, I hope not. But however many hours a day you will you’ll burn yourself into the ground quite early on. So it’s important. Yes, work hard. And take advantage of study groups work with colleagues, you know, help each other often becomes quite doggy dog. And finally, I found previously, but you help each other you all want each other to qualify. So yeah, just help each other, take it nice and easy. And use all the resources out there. There’s so many people out there willing to help. Some new resources available to get you through finals. So just take advantage of them.

[Jaz]
Yeah, I wish I didn’t really, it’s funny but I wish I didn’t work so hard to that final stretch of it. Because, you know, ended up being not as bad as I thought. And I think we’re you know, you can be your own harsh critic, especially after the exams and you know, I thought I’d failed some of those because you know, you’re being so harsh on yourself, but be kind to yourself, treat yourself. Take it easy, if you know I gave up gym for like three months, and I really liked to stay fit. So that wasn’t great. And it’s not great for your mental health either. So, but it’s difficult, you know, when you’re going through the exams, everything that you’ve done the last four, five years is building that moment. So the stress levels are just monumental.

[Prateek]
And I think a lot of that also comes from you hear what other people are doing, but you need to it’s a really silly phrase but you know, you do you, revise how you find best, you know, if you need to take half an hour to go to the gym. Do that just because someone else isn’t done. mean you shouldn’t? Because it’s ultimately, it’s your exam, it’s your degree and you need to get through it at the end. So stick to the ways that you know best stick to the way that I’ve got you through four years of dental school. And they weren’t say you’re wrong,

[Jaz]
It’s just another exam. It really is just another dental school exam. Stakes. the only thing is mental in a cycle, the stakes are a bit higher. Okay? And that’s why you work it up too much. But if you did well, in your third and fourth year, for example, then you know, you shouldn’t look at it any differently. And if you know, if you keep a cool mind about it and go with a level head, you’ll be absolutely fine. So good luck to any student who’s listening to this, I hope me and Prateek have helped you in any way at all to to get more marks and get through dental school successfully. Prateek, what was your website so they can check you out on there?

[Prateek]
dentalnotebook.com. Got lots of useful resources for finals.

[Jaz]
Brilliant. Now it’s a great website. And while I’m keeping out, man, thank you. Yeah, thanks so much, man.

[Prateek]
No problem. Happy to do it again.

[Jaz]
Let me know if you need anything in terms of, you know, advice about work or

[Prateek]
Yeah, once I start narrowing down a bit more, I think I will come pestering you.

[Jaz]
No, anytime, mate

[Prateek]
Alright. Cheers, man.

[Jaz]
Take care, bro.

Jaz’s Outro: So that’s it. Thank you so much for sticking right to the end. I really appreciate it. If you like this podcast, please. You know, write me a review on wherever you listen to it on iTunes, Apple, Google, wherever you listen to it. Write me a review. Let me know what you thought. I’d like to read comments, obviously. And keep in touch. I’ve got some great episodes coming up. Mostly around the occlusion stuff that’s I’m really mad about but if any one has any recommendations. I’m doing one soon about “A question I get asked commonly by young dentists: Which course should I do?” So I’ve got somebody speaking about that as well. So I hope you enjoyed and thank you so much for listening all the way to the end. Have an awesome week.

Hosted by
Jaz Gulati

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