hi everyone! I recently started a full time position as a hygiene assistant. I am currently finishing my pre requisite classes to apply for the dental hygiene program. I took this position to get more experience and to improve my application.
I have a bit of basic knowledge such as teeth numbers, but other than that, I am starting with no experience and not knowing what the abbreviations mean. I have worked a total of 8 days now and I understand what the abbreviations mean and I have learned a lot. I have been doing progress notes and submitting treatment all on my own, and correctly. However, they have been telling me that I need to get quicker (which I obviously already know). The issue is that I am not completely comfortable yet. I triple check progress notes and treatment just to make sure that I don't submit something that is wrong. I am still learning and feel like I am already doing really good for the time that I have been there. It is just very discouraging and overwhelming when they expect me to move at a faster pace.
I wanted to make this post to ask others what they think. Do you think that they are setting unrealistic expectations for me or should I already be moving quicker at this point? Like I said before, I had no experience when I started. Everything is new to me. I know that I need to work at a faster pace, but I feel like that just isn't possible yet. I feel like its going to take me about two more weeks to get used to the flow and get comfortable not having to triple check everything that I do.
We also got very busy a couple days ago and we were all in a huddle at the end of the day and they basically called me out for not moving fast enough. I felt so discouraged and I also felt awful that this was being said in front of everyone. Trust me I understand that as a hygiene assistant I need to have a sense of urgency, but I am still new so I just feel like they have unrealistic expectations 😞