Maggie McKay (Host): If you ever had an interest in becoming a dental assistant but had no idea where to begin, today's podcast, we'll discuss how to boost your career in dentistry with the ICHS Dental Assistant Internship Program. Our guests today are Viktoriya Garkavi and Mei Vuong from ICHS, Bellevue Medical and Dental Clinic. Welcome to Together We Rise, a podcast from International Community Health Services. ICHS advocates for health as a human right and welcomes all in need of care, regardless of health, immigration status, or ability to pay.

I'm your host, Maggie McKay. Viktoriya and Mei, would you please introduce yourselves?

Viktoriya Garkavi: Hello, I'm Viktoriya Garkavi. I'm Dental Clinical support supervisor at the Bellevue location of ICHS. I've been with them for over five years. I love every day of it.

Mei Vuong: My name is Mei and I am a dental assistant at ICHS in the Bellevue location as well.

Host: Viktoriya, can you tell me about the Dental Assistant Internship Program at ICHS? What makes it different from other training opportunities?

Viktoriya Garkavi: Well, this is an amazing opportunity to have an experience which you probably wouldn't get anywhere else. You get to learn firsthand. You are in a very friendly environment. You get paid for learning, which is a very unusual setting, and you get to learn firsthand with a community, with cultures, which represent almost everyone. In just in our small team, out of six people. It's six, six countries represented. With the DAs alone, I think it's over 16 cultures at the clinic. And we see everyone, all ages, all financial, social groups. We get familiar with different representation of this society, which you're probably not going to have opportunity anywhere else.

Dentistry is very complex and learn it by books or in school doesn't really give you a picture of what it is like. This way a person from any professional background could walk in, become part of the family, and learn from professionals not being judged by anyone, if you don't know anything, you expect it not to know anything, but you expected, to love it on exit, which I think happened to Mei, which she'll be able to share. So it's a great experience all the way across because you get to work from people from six months to 80 something years old, and you get to be helpful. You get to feel a satisfaction from improving their life, improving their health, and to learning a lot about them and to become like a member of this amazing family, which Bellevue does feel like it, I think to a lot of people.

I see a lot of people come to work happy. And a lot of people, reach out back and they still keep in touch. So I think that will be unlike any other regular school experience, and I think it'll give you something which you'll never be able to learn in school just from person to person.

Host: It sounds awesome. Viktoriya, what do dental assistants do? What qualities makes a successful dental assistant?

Viktoriya Garkavi: You have to be a people's person, which is broad saying, I understand, but you have to love to be helpful and to be in someone's life making changes because you do it every hour. You are in a patient's life, definitely, you are in your coworker life and provider's life and you sometimes more time in that life than anybody of their family member.

You spend 40 plus hours each week with all these people, so you are huge influencer on their day, on their emotional status and everything. So it takes much more than just be able to mix some temporary filling or hold a suction tip, you know, it is just a very underrepresented what it means to be.

Nowadays for, hand at chair site, at times you're a psychologist, at time, you someone's mother at time, you just have to be there to listen, you interpreter, you, whatever it takes. So dental assistant nowadays is a huge role in the dentistry altogether. And sometimes we do more than others people who takes part in it because we spent a big amount of time with patient record with person, who is a patient with their family sometimes on a phone. So we're very highly, diversified professionals, which has to do a lot of things. But besides that, of course we do sterilizaion, of course you do immediate assistance, of course, you have to learn basic medical and, electronical record, information.

So I think, this is somebody who does a lot without even realizing it. And it brings to so many experiences in different ways. So you can be a part of different career later and it'll help you no matter what you choose to do. If you go to radiology, if you go to nursing, if you go to take care of younger, older people, all of that, whatever you do as dental assistance will give you enormous amount of experience, which you'll be able to use. So I think I could not underestimate by saying how valuable that is.

Host: It sounds like very special people, like they have a calling. Mei did you ever consider a career in dentistry before applying for the internship? What attracted you to the program?

Mei Vuong: Honestly, I knew I wanted to be a hygienist for a while and before, even before the internship program. But I just wasn't sure it was the right fit for me. So with the internship, I was able to learn hands on, and it made me realize that being a hygienist is what I wanted for sure.

Host: And what attracted you to the program, to this program?

Mei Vuong: I think it see hands on practice, getting paid to learn, which is amazing. And everyone is just like family, so it was a perfect opportunity.

Host: And what's the most challenging part of being a dental assistant, do you think Viktoriya? And what's the most rewarding?

Viktoriya Garkavi: I'll start from most rewarding, I guess. Most rewarding, it's every time when you see patients coming back and they actually so happy to see you personally, and you remember what you told them or what you showed them, or you see their like hygiene improving or someone takes care of their kid in a different way because you explain it, you spend extra minutes. Or someone just shared with you something out of their personal life and they wanted to see you again. You'll be surprised how people do feel attached to dental assistants. They teach their language sometimes, they share their food. Like patients really feel connected. If you give your all. If you truly there, if they feel that you really care for them and it's like, hi, how are you today?

And they just feel that they've been recognized. So, and it's very rewarding because you get a little bit of that positive energy back and you can go for another day. So also it's rewarding when you know, you made provider's day easier. If they had challenging patient and you kind of deescalated them or you were able to change their behavior or their perception of the day. And then you feel like you did something amazing for both sides. You made patients feel better. You made provider feel better. If you took off stress of your partner at front desk, you also feel very empowered because here you come, you're professional. You know what to say.

So a lot of those things are very rewarding. You partner's coming to your room and helping you with your sinking you don't have time. You have difficult procedure and then your partner's right there because it is a teamwork, it's a constant teamwork. It's not a one person success. And it's very important why you have a good team, makes everything much easier and much more fun.

And then you get to share same interests with your partners. You also could say, remember that we did this, we did that, and they understand you. So the common wealth of knowledge and experiences. So that's very rewarding. And by the end of years of your career, you know so much more. You have so much, you learn from dentists and from just procedure by procedure. So you feel empowered by knowledge. So that's rewarding.

See your patients grow and have kids and bringing their kids to you for me, like 20 something years later. So that's very rewarding. And what's challenging? Show up every day with a smile on your face. No matter how you feel, no matter how your personal life has been and how you like, how you feel this morning, how hard it was to get outta bed and come and see someone at 8:00 AM and be so excited for them to even show up. That's challenging day after day, to have not been able to express your own personal feelings because you're always there to accommodate other people feelings. You know, they're vulnerable, you know, they're about to get anesthesia, you know, their tooth must have hurt, or maybe they have to face the build they're not looking forward to.

So you have to be there with that positive energy ready to share with anyone who comes your way. And it takes a lot out of person. So to have your resources of recharging, which is usually your teammates, say, your partners, your coworkers, very important. Otherwise, without a good team, super challenging.

Host: And Mei, what do you think is the most challenging part of being a dental assistant and the most rewarding?

Mei Vuong: Challenging, I feel is being able to accommodate to the patient's needs and the provider's needs. For the provider, everyone works differently. So from hopping from one provider to a different provider, I must change my way of working, change the way the things they use. So I think for me as a dental assistant, that was challenging because I personally, like consistency. But with dentists, everyone's different. And with patients the way they like to be treated or how they like to be taken care of is different. So being able to accommodate to that can be challenging sometimes. Rewarding is knowing that I am taking care of the patient and being able to help our clinic reach a common goal of providing the best care for the patient. I feel like it's really rewarding being able to walk the patient out at the end of their appointment and they're smiling and happy about the treatment they received. That's rewarding as well too.

Host: And Mei, how has this internship program changed your life?

Mei Vuong: It gave me confidence in believing that I am on the right path in my career. Like I said, I didn't know I wanted for sure to be a hygienist, but being an assistant and seeing everything in front of me and like learning hands-on on what is this tooth and what is this problem? It just, I enjoy it more and more day by day. And so now I'm in the hygiene program and so I'm enjoying it even more because of the internship program that I was in.

Host: That's so great. It's a win-win all the way around. Viktoriya, when can people apply?

Viktoriya Garkavi: They just go on ichs.com and they can apply throughout the year. Some sites could take one intern at a time. I'm more than happy to take two at a time at Bellevue because my experience after Mei I feel like we just get rock stars and it's amazing. People come our way and it's just a joy. So to have someone acquire a new career and learn fast, like for example, program might last up to two years, so people should do their own pace. No pressure. They do online classes with help them advice if they need any assistance, but Mei was, I don't even know how to say it. She rockstar is not covering it. So she did it in like six months. She knew more than we did really soon. So I'm not expecting and like I wouldn't have done so good. I would say we take people anytime and we would love to work with them. If they are interested, they could just apply ichs.com and then they could pick a site they want to go to if one site suits them better than other, but if Bellevue is their choice, then I'm, happy to greet them here with open arms and learn as we go.

Host: And how is the program funded?

Viktoriya Garkavi: So the ICHS treats interns as their employee. So you just get hired as a regular employee and you're not expect to be registered dental assistant, we have an agreement with online program, so ICHS pays for the online part of the course. Student does online could, gets connected and gets all the resources they need.

So they do online program, they get book for dental assisting, which gets reimbursed by ICHS. So it's a, you, like a regular, full package of benefits, everything for the employees. So they just become an ICHS employee and doesn't cost them anything. During that program, as they complete all online courses, they're able to do the Washington state DA registration and if we have an opening at this site or site of their choice, we can upgrade them to actually dental assistant position.

That's what happened to Mei. She didn't even have to wait two years of the program she did at six months, but transfer her to DA position, so she became a dental assistant and pay goes up. Uh, dental assistant, position also has room to grow after you do some competencies and you assist with certain procedures, you can become dental assistant two, which gives you another raise in your pay.

So that's helpful. So you'll naturally organically transform from intern to DA if you choose likely if not outside and other site will have a room to accept a new employee. But we'll hopefully keep it here. You know, and that's how it works. And then people learn a lot. They do a lot they can do to school. We work with them too, if they choose to go to school. Like was, good for Mei. We give them best recommendations we can because we know everything about them, of course. And then, if they accepted to school, we'll work with them as well. We have an option to transfer them to on-call position. Which we would happy to have them still work with us and we miss them definitely.

And then this way they get to be in school and whenever they have spring break or time off the we bring them in and we engage them in our daily work and they get paid and they just still our employee. So we hope to keep it that way as long as until they get that next education, next Certification.

Host: It sounds like it's working. If someone would like to find out more, where would they go Viktoriya?

Viktoriya Garkavi: They will just check on ichs.com website and then they will find their intern where it's available. And if for any reason they don't see it's open at the moment. So they're welcome to reach out, they're welcome to reach out to clinics, whichever location's more interesting, and they just could, ask to speak to a dental clinical support supervisor and we'll happy to share with them and help them, whatever we could.

Host: And is there anything else you'd like to share in closing, either Viktoriya or Mei or both of you?

Mei Vuong: I do I feel like going to school for a dental assistant is completely different from being a dental assistant intern at ICHS. If you were to go to school, I feel like there be is more textbook heavy and you don't get a lot of patient contact time versus working for the clinic as an intern, I was able to learn on the spot, and again, a lot of patient contact time and in real life situations too. So that's the difference, and I think that's what helped me excel a lot too.

Viktoriya Garkavi: Yep.

And I would like to say like in Mei case, she was actually our front desk while ago. I hired her for front desk first and then we engaged her in back office and then you know the story. So I think that's an amazing opportunity. I myself went through dental assisting program many, many years ago and I remember when we come for first internship, it's like eye-opening. You don't know anything. You don't know how to really, you touch people a couple times in school, but you had zero feel how it really is. And you have to pay, you have to invest time. And then you try the profession. Here you do it opposite. You try the profession, you learn and then you decide for yourself, is it something you're willing to do? So you just get an experience, you get paid, and then you really know if you belong or not. And a lot of people fall in love with dentistry. You'll be surprised. Surprise.

Host: It sounds like it. Viktoriya and Mei, thank you so much for telling us more about the ICHS Dental Assistant Internship Program. It sounds wonderful and we really appreciate your time. Again, that was Viktoriya Garkavi, and Mei Vuong. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out our entire podcast library for topics of interest to you. This has been Together We Rise, a podcast from International Community Health Services, ICHS. Thank you for listening.