A Day in the Life of a Pediatric Dentist at CDP

Everyone comforting a young, female patient in the dentist chair.

If you love working with kids in the dental environment, you might be left wondering if specializing in pediatrics is the right move for you. Do you really need to take on the extra expense and years of schooling? Partnering with Community Dental Partners could give you the perfect opportunity to build the career you’ve been dreaming of, right out of dental school. Our family dental practices will give you the perfect environment and opportunities to work as a general dentist in a pediatric environment. Check out a day in the life of a pediatric dentist at CDP and how we give our doctors the tools to succeed!

Day-to-Day Rewards

At CDP, we make it our mission to provide quality dental care for patients who otherwise don’t have access to treatment. There are many benefits to establishing a practice in rural and low-access areas. However, we think the greatest reward is providing a positive experience and fun environment to kids and families who rarely get star treatment due to their socioeconomic status. Seeing little faces light up when they’re treated like princes and princesses can make your whole day enjoyable!

We’ve engineered our family practices with the youngest family members in mind. Not only are prizes and rewards—including being crowned king or queen of Smile Magic—great incentives for good behavior, but they also help build positive experiences in the dental office. This is important as it can set kids up for a lifetime of good oral health.

Young female patient crowned a princess at the dentist office

Overcoming Anxieties

Many children develop dental fears and phobias from early negative experiences. Working with children gives you the opportunity to truly change their lives. Dentists working in family and pediatric practices are in the unique position to determine how those kids will feel about dentists well into adulthood. CDP makes having a great patient experience our central goal. In fact, the pillars of our practice are built with the patient as our focus.

However, working with kids means you’re responsible for more than just the child’s experience! Working with pediatric patients might also mean working with an audience. Parents frequently end up with more anxiety than the patient themselves. Oftentimes, parental emotions can be a huge source of stress for family dentists.

This is where working with a support team can really come in handy. With CDP, you’re not on your own learning how to navigate parental or pediatric anxiety. We have protocols in place to help everyone feel great about their experience in our office. For example, we have a plan set for when a language barrier makes it hard to communicate. Your team will be there to help you learn how to manage the challenges of pediatric care from day one.

You May Surprise Yourself

Some patients join our team with their own anxieties. Working with kids can be intimidating for some dentists, especially those new to the field. Depending on your experiences in the academic setting and your personal life, you might not feel entirely prepared to jump into a pediatric setting. As you’ll see in the next section, we’ve got comprehensive programs to help you learn. You will never be thrown to the wolves with CDP! We’re here beside you every step of the way.

Young female patient smiling in the dentist chair.

The funny thing is that many of those same dentists who feel hesitant about working with kids end up being the ones who love it the most. After training, many of our dentists find it harder to go back to working on their adult patients! Kids are much more adaptable than adults in most cases, and you may be surprised how satisfying your work will be when you help a child overcome their fear to achieve better health. There really is nothing better than a day full of giggles and connecting with a kid who felt scared or shy when you first met them.

Support System

Your support system at CDP will make all the difference in your day-to-day work life. We support our doctors through every phase, especially in training. We know that many dental school programs will leave graduates with little pediatric practice. That’s why our mentorship program trains doctors on how to treat kids. You’ll need the skills to talk to both kids and parents and reassure them they’re in a safe place. You’ll also learn oral conscious sedation and gain real-life experience, so you’ll feel confident in all aspects of pediatric care.

Mentors Make the Difference

We know you’ll have questions, and that’s why you’ll be partnered with a mentor who can help you grow as a practitioner. Dr. Lindsey Cua describes how valuable her mentor has been in shaping her career. “I have access to a lot of mentors who can help me,” she says, “especially with pediatric treatment planning. I have someone who can give me tips on how to plan a treatment, answer my questions, and push me to try new things. I’m getting more and more comfortable as I’m gaining confidence in my clinical skills and working towards being the dentist I want to become.”

CDP offers something no other practice or group can give you: our unique ten-week mentoring and orientation program! You’ll work side-by-side with your mentor dentists to learn how to work with patients and integrate with your entire staff. You’ll learn everything you need to hit the ground running!

You’ll Have a Team at Your Back

Most family dentists working without the benefit of a group or DSO behind them can find themselves swamped with work other than dentistry. A significant portion of their day can be eaten up with hiring, payroll, equipment maintenance, and a whole host of other necessary tasks to keep their practice running.

New doctors are greeted in the CDP Lewisville movie room.

That’s not why most doctors pursue dentistry! Your support staff at CDP can relieve you of most of those distractions so you can focus completely on patient care. We believe in playing to people’s strengths. You didn’t study health administration; you studied dentistry. That’s why your CDP team will take care of issues like consent forms, supplies ordering, and so on. You won’t have to worry about office management and can get to the work you love!

Ongoing Growth

Your ten-week mentorship and orientation period will just be the first of your opportunities to learn with CDP. “There’s so much opportunity to learn and grow,” Dr. Cua says. “Since I’ve graduated, I’ve seen myself improve in terms of speed and working with others. I’ve also improved my patient communication as that is key in building relationships with those in the chair as well as the parents who are bringing in their children.”

Part of how we support our doctors is to help them continue to grow over the long term. In fact, we offer forty hours of continuing education credit for oral conscious sedation for new dentists. You’ll also get monthly CE classes on the clinical side throughout your career with us. New doctors will have the opportunity to join our yearly humanitarian outreach trip, a truly unique and enriching experience.

More than anything, though, we believe in the power of great culture in our practices. Especially when you work with kids, communication, compassion, and problem-solving are essential. That’s why we invest not only in clinical CEs but also in training soft skills. Growing as people makes us better family doctors.

Working with children and families can let you build a career you’ll truly love. The fun, high-energy environment of our family practices will give you something to look forward to every day. Schedule a call with a Recruiting Manager today to learn more about a rewarding dentistry career at CDP!