Absolute Dental Training – Our Student Nurses

23 / 05 / 2023

Absolute Dental Training – Our Student Nurses

The Absolute Dental Training branch of Absolute Dental offers a training course to student dental nurses that has a 100% success rate in the National Diploma in Dental Nursing examination.

As part of the final preparation towards their exam, the students have an OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) session, that sees them facing scenarios that they are likely to face in their genuine OSCEs in a few weeks time.

The OSCE stations range from instrument selection, mixing dental materials, medical emergencies, actor based “communication” scenarios and dental charting….and much, much more!

Our session, held with students who we have already successfully tutored to pass the written section of their exam, offers and authentic experience for the students with engaging and interactive stations that we believe truly prepares them for the actual examination, like nothing else can.

I tutor the course, and also act as an examiner for the exam board, so have first hand experience of the OSCEs, and I consider it my duty to prepare my students for this daunting event, to the best of my ability.

A silent room, with approximately 20 OSCE stations, each with an examiner scrutinising you, and often an actor primed to ask you leading questions, can be simply terrifying, if you don’t know what to expect.

Our preparation sessions often see the students make silly mistakes due to the pressure of this unusual situation – but we much prefer them to make their mistakes with us, than in the actual exam! The whole Absolute team get involved with the session, from dentists to hygienists and the nurses too – because to our students, these are all unfamiliar faces, just like they will face on exam day.

Once we analyse their individual performances, station by station, the students have a much better idea of what to expect on the day, and what is expected of them.

We hope that our students benefit from this, certainly the evidence would suggest they do!

Good luck to ours and all other students taking their OSCEs in June.

Diane