Month: October 2021

The Importance of Dental Continuing Education

The pursuit of lifelong learning-whether to enrich our lives, follow a new dream, or simply challenge ourselves, is certainly something that appeals to many of us. For some professionals, however, ongoing training in their fields of expertise is more important than for others. Individuals working in the medical and dental fields are entrusted with the safety and comfort of others on a daily basis. Should they choose to rely upon their initial training indefinitely, ignoring ongoing developments and technological advances, they would be putting their practices at legal risk and jeopardizing the health and welfare of their patients. In these fields, it’s simply not an option to assume that there is nothing more to learn.

Dental continuing education is essential for anyone working within the dental field. As in the medical field, technological advances in the field come at a rapid-fire pace, and staying abreast of the latest research, tools and treatment methods is crucial. Ongoing training for dental professionals is so important that most states require that dentists and hygienists complete a certain number of dental continuing education activities each year in order to remain licensed to practice. These requirements vary from state to state, and in some cases also apply to dental assistants.

Pursuing continued education in the dental field can be beneficial in several ways. For a dentist who is currently in practice, ongoing continuing education ensures that his or her patients have access to the latest diagnostic, preventative and treatment methods. For an individual just beginning a career in the dental field, dental continuing education can open new career pathways, provide opportunities for advancement and improve earning power.

A wide variety of dental continuing education activities are available for both working and non-working individuals. If your goal is simply to stay informed about new research findings and updated industry best practices, there are plenty of low-cost, self-paced online courses that can help you to meet your state’s continuing education requirements and enhance your ability to perform your current job role. If you are interested in furthering your formal education, however, in order to advance your career in the dental field, you may wish to pursue a degree or certificate program. For example, a dental assistant may discover that she is interested in pursuing a career as a hygienist-whether to earn a higher salary or simply to experience more personal fulfillment in her job role. In this case, she would need a degree from an accredited dental hygiene school in order to obtain her license.

Regardless of the pathway you choose, as a dental professional you should consider your pursuit of education to be a lifelong endeavor. Doing so will not only better position you to advance within your chosen field; it will also ensure that you’re able to provide the best possible care for your patients.

Ambition is One Piece of the Puzzle

There is a great lie that has been circulating from generation to generation and from person to person for many years, and this lie has caused misfortune for a countless number of people.

I assume this will be a subject contended by any person who has invested time and money and also an immeasurable series of sacrifices counting on this theory being valid.

But it isn’t valid. As a matter of fact, for anyone who is emotionally involved with it may feel defeated once they realize their belief system is flawed.

The lie I am talking about is, “Go to school, get a good education and you will get a good job.” This of course is not true. The reality is that the streets today are filled with diploma carrying graduates who are homeless, jobless and for all practical circumstances, broken. On the same token there are many multi-millionaires who never or barely graduated from grade school.

I want to clear one thing up. I have nothing against an education and I feel that with appropriate guidance a proper education is the only path to true success. In my humble opinion proper education is a continuing education because all information is constantly changing. You do not need to be in a school setting to get an education. Today, any information you can imagine is free and available to anyone who can use a computer.

That to me makes living today the best time to be alive.

Earl Nightingale defined success as, “The progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.” I believe that this is true. One person’s idea of success is definitely not everyone’s.

Eric Hoffer also stated that, “In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” He is also correct. Any worthwhile education is ongoing. Reading material and remembering it long enough to repeat it on a test is not an appropriate method of retaining information. You need to be personally involved with the learning process and emotionally interested in the material in order to retain and continue the education.

If you are not emotionally involved with the material, then, you are not on purpose. Your purpose is what you are born to do. This also brings up another lie, the lie that you can not make a living doing what you love. This is a big lie because you can make more than a good living doing what you love to do. This lie often pushes people to try and educate themselves on a subject that they are not in tune with and this keeps them from being emotionally involved with the material. And to reiterate what I explained earlier you need to be emotionally involved and interested with the material in order to retain and continue the education.

So, how do you know if you are on purpose? Ambition, when you are on purpose to do what you love and what you were born to do, your ambition will get you out of bed in the morning to greet the new day long before your alarm clock does. Ambition is something everyone was born with and this ambition will constantly and continuously push you towards what makes you happy. Most people take the subtle nudge given by their ambition and channel it into a hobby or pastime of some sort, not realizing that they could do it full time as a career or actually study what their ambition nudges them towards. This way you are on purpose with what drives you.

-Brendan

Advance Your Education

Between taking care of their children, fulfilling their professional responsibilities, and spending some time with loved ones, parents may think it would be difficult to advance their education. However, for many parents, going to a career college may be one of the most effective pathways to better careers and higher salaries. Think of the benefits that this would bring to your family as a whole. You will be able to provide more for your children, and that alone can lead to a more enjoyable and productive life!

Parents who are interested in pursuing an advanced degree may benefit from looking into degree programs at a four-year college or vocational school. A community college is also a great choice since they are often placed close to residential areas. You may choose courses with flexibility, which may fit your busy life more conveniently because classes are often taught at night or on the weekends. Having a college that’s close to home greatly cuts down on time spent driving and money spent on gas. This also means more time with the kiddies!

Wouldn’t you love to have a say in when you do you school work? This means that more flexibility is given to students as to when they must complete assignments or turn in class work. Schools like these have recently started to cater to the older student, providing plenty of supportive programs for those who may have jobs or responsibilities at home. We all know that family comes first! These programs include childcare, leniency toward assignment due-dates, and mentor programs.

As many parents are busy during the day time and weekdays, this flexibility may greatly improve their chances of academic success. Rather than spending half of their time planning when you can fit homework and other class requirements into your busy schedule, you can focus entirely on completing assignments to the best of your ability. Think of it as an ‘A’ for effort!

Pursuing a degree through a four-year college may have many other benefits for parents. They may be able to inspire their children to academic success by providing a strong model of the importance of education. Your children will be more apt to do well in school if they see how serious you take it. You can do homework together and help each other study for tests.

Additionally, studies have shown that individuals who have advanced degrees tend to earn higher salaries than those with less education. So, if that’s the case, why wouldn’t you want to earn your degree? A better job with more money sounds great! This money could be used to pay off debt, or it could even be used for fun activities such as taking your children to the movies or taking a trip to the Orlando theme parks.

Attending college may also provide parents with an intellectual outlet that they may not have access when they spend most of their time with their children. I’m sure you can attest to feeling like you speak in babbles all day if you have an infant or toddler. These career colleges have even added online classes and web-based programs available for nearly all fields of study. This gives you the option to pick classes that interest you!

The Role of For-Profit Universities

For-profit universities are just that-their universities that are designed to make money. They are run as businesses. This is quite a bit different men traditionally University that is run as a nonprofit organization. Many for-profit universities are accredited institutions. They take a lot of criticism because in their quest to make a profit they often hire underqualified teachers and have aggressive recruiting tactics.

However it’s important to see that there is a role for for-profit universities in training. A traditional university generally reacts very slowly. It takes years in order for them to bring a new degree program into existence. This means that there is a large gap of time from when employers need a new skill until traditional universities are turning out students. this is where for-profit universities can be very helpful. A for-profit university is driven by the profit motive and because of this they have to react much more quickly to market forces. When employers need a new skill the for-profit universities can quickly create a degree program that targets that particular area.

The ability to quickly get students into the marketplace for hot skills in areas that may not have even existed five years ago is very important. It gives employers a pool of potential employees to hire from this simply would not exist if they were to wait on traditional colleges to create new degree programs and attract students.

Another way to for-profit universities benefit the economy is by allowing people to attend school who could not handle the schedule of a traditional class. Many of the for-profit universities have invested heavily in online technology as a means of providing instruction. We are starting to see traditional institutions catch up, but for many years the bulk of online education was happening in for-profit university classrooms. These nontraditional schools are pushing the envelope when it comes to teaching styles and delivery methods. When the traditional organizations catch up there will probably be some new way of providing instruction that will be pioneered by these nontraditional accredited institutions and eventually trickle down into traditional schools as well.

While these schools that are operated for profit for filling very vital role in the economy, care needs to be taken to keep them from taking advantage of students. In the drive to make money there needs to be some standard in their recruiting process. Traditional schools are more careful about who they let in because the student failing is very expensive for them. In many a the nontraditional schools they make their money regardless of whether or not the student fails or graduates. These perverse incentives can make it easy to create aggressive recruiting that tries to get people to sign up most people are fairly trusting of academic institutions so they don’t always check things out as much as they should when a recruiter gives them stats and figures about job opportunities that they will have upon graduation.