It's never too late to learn something New?

 

My son graduated from NYU College of Dentistry this June. I started teaching at the School shortly before he started 4 years ago. I had always wanted to resume my teaching activities there ( I had taught briefly in the 1980's) and clearly this was a good time to start teaching again. 

I asked if I could be assigned as a clinical instructor of dentistry in NYU's Department of Comprehensive Care and Cariology. As such I would be directly supervising third and fourth year students while they were in the clinics treating patients. I suspected I would be a good instructor and I could give something back both  to my community and to my profession. 

I was able to help the students and their patients achieve better dental outcomes and I found that I benefited in other ways as well. I found that the challenges that I faced each week ended up further sharpening my clinical skills and accelerated opportunities for my own learning and definitely improved my clinical dexterity as well. Each day I taught there I was involved in hands on treatment involving numerous patients.

I felt a ltitle like a baseball player who increases the amount of time spent  taking batting practice. On any given day in my Midtown dental practice I might be working on one or two patients having crowns done, but at the NYU clinic I would often be helping students supervising a total of 4-8 crowns each day. I found that my crown prepping and impressioning skills continued to improve due to all the practice I am getting at the school.  While in my office I have total control of my choice of instruments and burs, at the school I adapt to the armamentarium that the school offers. I tell my students that when we go to "war" we use the weapons we have, not the weapons we may want. 

Clearly, now after my participation for the last 4 years I personally can report that I have not only improved my skills as a dentist and also have gotten healthier as well. I believe that my hand eye coordination has gotten better as well. The steps that I take while teaching have  facilitated my efforts at weight control and improved my stamina as well.

For all of these reasons, even though my son has graduated and is starting his hospital residency, I will remain on the faculty for the foreseeable future. I now teach on Fridays and each week I look forward to spending time at the school interacting with the patients, students and other faculty.