There is a huge misconception about what it takes to do well in the bench test.
Please read this very carefully and get this straight.

Dentists are proud of themselves, and for good reason. It took a lot to get into dental school and even more to go through it. Perhaps you got killer grades in high-school, but in dental school you endured countless tests, challenging graduation requirements, and many unreasonable situations dealing with the school system.

After all that hard work, you’ve earned the title, doctor. People show you respect, especially in your home country.

To many dentists, coming to the US and being told that they have to prove themselves on a typodont seems somewhat insulting, as if you’re taking a step backward in your career. You’ve treated real patients and you’re very good at what you do, so why do US dental schools make such a fuss about demonstrating your preparation skills on some plastic teeth? The thought of having to undergo bench test preparation is so daunting for most candidates that many tend to downplay the importance of bench test skills and brush it off as no big deal.

In truth though, it’s a VERY big deal.

• • Have you ever agonized over 0.3mm in width or depth doing cavity preparations?
  • Paid meticulous attention to the angles between the walls and floors of cavity preparations to make sure it’s just right and consistent throughout?
  • Have you ever tried to dial in your crown preparations to 1-2 degrees in angulation and make sure your chamfer is less than 0.5mm wide, but the walls don’t have undercuts?

Dental students in most countries around the world don’t spend as much time perfecting typodont preparations as they’re expected to in the US. Not only that, it’s also common to just learn crown preps in theory without practicing them at all. For most schools, it’s just not practical to include them as clinical requirements, so they choose to focus their training and resources in more relevant areas.

Dental students can treat patients effectively without near perfect preps,  so most schools don’t make the effort to teach these skills.

The bench test however, is all about demonstrating near perfect preps.

Taking care of the smallest detail down to the tenth of a millimeter is what you need to thrive at during your bench test.

I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not. This is a completely different territory from what you’re used to.

And just learning the specs for ideal preparations won’t get you anywhere.

The ‘knowing’ part is easy, that kind of information can be found in books, on Facebook and Youtube, and all over the internet.

Figuring out the right specs for preparations – depth, width, angulations – isn’t hard, the info is widely available to anyone. It can take some hassle to find the right information, but it’s all within reach.

So, what is it that makes the bench test challenging?

Execution: Doing the preparation

the way it needs to be done.

99% of the time candidates don’t do well even if they know the criteria by heart, this is including seasoned dentists with years of experience.

The more alarming thing? From studies we conducted with international dentists, the majority of candidates didn’t even know that their work was bad after the test, because their eyes weren’t trained to see the mistakes.

So even if though candidates know all of the specs, their preps often aren’t remotely close to ideal. Sadly candidates rarely realize it, believing their work is acceptable. How do I know this? Because they come to me after their bench tests, confused as to why they didn’t get accepted!

In reality, you’re likely a much better practitioner than most US dental students, but that doesn’t matter when it comes to the bench test. US dental students are much better at doing ideal preparations on typodont teeth than you are.

The discrepancy is huge, and you your job is to bridge that gap.

Your preparations must be as good as a US dental student’s to pass this test. The professors that teach and grade them are also grading your work.

Dental students in the US are trained from the beginning of dental school to adhere to strict and exacting standards, often staying late at night practicing to pass their frequent practical tests; tests they fail if an angle is off even by just a few degrees. They do this for a full 2 years.

This simply isn’t the case with dentists from most other countries – practicing dentists never went through anything like this outside of North America.

Most dentists I’ve spoken to say that they did learn how to do ideal preparations back in dental school, but only performed them a few times on a typodont and little emphasis was placed upon them. Their only focus was to try the preparations extraorally before treating patients.

There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just that the emphasis of early dental education is different in the US than the rest of the world.

Ideal preparations are taken very seriously with high and exacting standards in US dental programs. Showing them a clinically acceptable crown or cavity preparation is not going to get you anywhere.

Now it’s up to you to meet that standard if you want to join their program. Strategic bench test prep is the key to doing this.

International dentists are in a unique situation: they are already dentists, but they need to learn how to do ideal preparations – a seemingly basic skill  –  though one they’ve never really done before.

Even though international dentists come from all different kind of backgrounds, years of experience and even years of practice in a specialty, in the world of ideal typodont preparations, nearly all international dentists – from fresh graduates to seasoned practitioners –  end up starting from the same level.

This is why everyone needs an extensive bench test prep course like Bench Test Mastery.

Not so much for those with years of experience. Nonetheless these are the facts.

So if you’ve practiced for a while please don’t let pride get in your way.

Most fresh-graduates can still relate to a ‘student mentality’ and often seek out help, whereas dentists with a few years of experience tend to be more resistant to the idea that they need to go back and learn how to cut plastic teeth. The lesson is often learned the hard way – by failing through one or two application cycles – wasting thousands of dollars and an exorbitant amount of time in the process.
My goal is to prevent that from happening to you.

To help international dentists with this unique situation we’ve created a radically different way of learning the skills you need for your bench test preparation, whether you’ve never done a crown preparation before, or you’ve treated patients for years.

The traditional way of leaning over the instructor’s shoulder doesn’t work;  we all know that you just can’t get close enough to see everything without blocking the operator’s view. The tooth is small and the details of the preparation are even smaller. Unfortunately we don’t have the kind of vision that birds have.

Sadly, I’ve see too many candidates who’ve gone to a live bench test preparatory course who at the end the few short days were ultimately left alone to figure it all out because they failed to grasp  subtle but crucial  details due to poor optics and lack of a personalized attention.

With all this new cool technology in the world, don’t you think it’s about time that someone does something about this? Personal robots are in development for heaven’s sake.

So we did it, we took on the challenge and initiated a breakthrough change, we call it  Zoomed-View.

Based on the success of our clients we know that we’ve hit a golden formula that works the best bench test prep possible.

Before you commit to reading about what this method is all about, let me assume a key question you must be asking yourself.

“Will an ONLINE bench test prep course actually help ME succeed?”

The answer is a resounding YES. But you don’t have to take our word for it. Checkout the following words of a recent candidate who kindly shared her experience with us:

I just loved it. It was difficult to believe that an online course could help to improve and prepare for the bench. However, I was impressed. Everything is well designed and you can review the information as much as you want.

Read our reviews

It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting out, haven’t touched a handpiece in 10 years, or if have years of experience practicing. We’ll get into what makes it special in a bit, but for now it works for new graduate dentists who’s never done a crown preparation before, to seasoned dentists who needs to bridge the gap of ideal preparations.

*Stats based upon estimates conducted by IDC based upon publicly available information and internally conducted candidate polls

Back to #5 though:
78% of applicants wait until they get an interview invitation to
start starting their bench test preparation

This is big! We talked about how the bench test is completely different from the type of dentistry than what’s taught in other countries. Why oh why are you waiting? Start practicing the moment your applications are sent in, you won’t pass the test with average work! I’ve done this before myself, and no I didn’t make it in that year. I wish someone told me to wake up back then.

First: most applicants have no idea where they stand in the competition in terms of their hand skills.

Second: most candidates are over-confident. Just learning how to identify mistakes in a preparation is an overlooked skill that you need to learn. Without knowing your mistakes, you’ll likely think you’re better than you really are.

Please pardon me if I’m coming across harsh, but I’ve seen so much.

There was an applicant I spoke to a few years back, a female from India, who started crying while we were on the phone. She didn’t pass the bench test. For the school she interviewed at, she had to pass the bench test first to have a in-person interview, and she didn’t make it. She said she practiced really hard and did well on her bench test too.  She couldn’t believe it.

When I saw her work it was nothing close what US dental schools were looking for.

She’d practiced for 7 months on her own! She’d shown her work to several friends some who were already in dental school, and they all said she was really good.

Let’s not get into the details of what happened with getting feedback from her friends, which happens all the time by the way, but can be like rolling the dice with your future!

Similar scenarios play out often, and it’s heartbreaking.

The bench test is too importan! How long did you prepare to come this far again? And if you mess up a prep at the test you may have to start all over again – with a new CAAPID application –  hoping you get an interview call again next year. Each year you repeat the process, your potential for acceptance weakens (schools don’t look kindly on candidates with too many failed attempts).

Don’t do this.

Can you imagine trying to learn a brand new language – lets say Japanese for instance – relying on random YouTube videos? You’ll be tested on fluent conversation in just a few months. If your future career depended on that one Japanese conversation test, wouldn’t you be more strategic in how your set about to learn the language, beyond just watching Youtube videos and free online seminars?

How would “I can handle this Japanese test on my own. It’s just another language and I already know how to speak English. How different can it be? I’ll just ask my friends for help” sound?

Not so good, right?

And what if you were competing against those who had studied hard in actual preparatory courses that taught Japanese as a second language, for months beforehand?

Ironically, this what I read about from advanced standing candidates in online forums and Facebook groups all the time when it comes to the Bench Test!

It’s easy to find information on the criteria for ideal preparations, the secret to success is execution. 

EVERYONE  is practicing, but few will make it. Effective bench test prep is the key, and IDC is here to help.

Wondering if this is right for you, or have questions around it? Book a quick Q&A Session with me:

Upgrading Feedbacks

The Well Prepared package provides the ability to extend your daily feedbacks from Dr. Alyssa by 6 months. A 3 month extension can be purchased for $299 at any time and can be purchased as many times as necessary (unless you’ve been accepted).