SUCCESSFUL DENTAL NURSES

Meet Muntaha, an overseas dentist who completed her NEBDN Diploma in a Dental Nursing course with SmileWisdom after sitting in on one of our lessons to see if she liked it.

“I am a qualified dentist from Pakistan, and when I came to the UK I wanted to stay in dentistry so I decided to study to become a dental nurse. I began looking at dental nursing colleges in 2019 and visited 3 schools. I didn’t like any of them. Everyone just wanted me to pay right away and go home – and I wasn’t comfortable with the staff.”

Then I went to see SmileWisdom at the British Dental Association and I met Mike who explained everything to me. It was so easy to start and payments were in instalments. He invited me and my husband (who was with me) to sit in Liz’s class to see what it was like. She was so great and I decided she would be my teacher and then I signed up!

All the staff are so nice. Anytime I am stuck they help me, whether I contact Mike, Becky, Liz or Emma – I have never seen staff like this anywhere, they are so nice! I was able to find a trainee dental nurse job by leaving my CV with all my local practices (a tip from Liz), but I knew SmileWisdom provided job support if I needed it. I still work in this practice today! Most of my learning came from the class because Liz was so amazing. I just did everything Liz told me to do and would read anything she directed me to. She was always happy to answer any questions I asked. I think what also helped me a lot was reading between classes and always doing my homework. Liz teaches very step by step in a basic way which makes it easy to understand. So if she is your teacher, my advice is just follow Liz’s instructions.

Although I initially struggled a bit with ROE in terms of what to do and how to do it, Liz and Emma were on hand to help me and I also had lots of support from my fellow student colleagues. When the pandemic started and the country went into lockdown, our classes went online. The benefit of this was that the class was recorded and I was able to re-listen many times to learn more. The best thing about SmileWisdom is the team because they are so supportive and available when I need help. Even now after I have finished my course with SmileWisdom, I know I can still contact Mike and Becky for help if I need it – in fact I have and they are so helpful! I have already recommended lots of friends to SmileWisdom and if you’re an overseas dentist like me, it’s great to learn the UK dentistry system and stay in touch with dentistry while you work towards your ORE exams. I am so grateful to the whole SmileWisdom team. I enjoyed my time when I was there and I miss it. In the future I hope to do a postgraduate course with them”.