Second Week

During my second week back, I decided to talk to Sam to see if she needed anything done before I sat at the front desk. She told me that San Jose actually received a new children's book from a company, and San Jose had to record the responses and reactions of the kids that read the book. So Sam asked me to take the surveys and read the book to children I found in the clinic and then record their answers to the survey. The book was for ages 4 and up and it was written in both English and Spanish. Some of the questions on the survey were: "what did you like about the book?", "what didn't you like about the book?", and there were also questions for the parents to answer. When I was trying to find kids to read to, I found that most of them only knew Spanish. Thus, I had the problem of trying to find kids that knew English or had parents that spoke English. In the end, I was only able to get about 3 surveys done. I honestly felt kind of awkward just randomly approaching families and asking them if I could read to their children, but the parents were very nice and encouraged their children to speak up and not be shy.

After this experience, it reinforced the importance of knowing Spanish, especially if I would like to practice dentistry in Houston. Although I took some Spanish courses in high school and am currently taking Spanish I, I am no where near fluent. But after shadowing a few dentists and volunteering at San Jose, it seems that knowing Spanish is a must. My brother, who is a dentist, is not able to communicate with many of his patients because he does not know Spanish, and he has to instead ask his assistants to translate. I definitely want to avoid this language barrier and be able to talk and joke around with my patients, trying to make them feel as comfortable as possible. In the future, one of my goals is to be become fluent in Spanish so I can interact with my patients and with as much of the Houston community as possible.