104 - Pediatric Dentistry Residents’ Professional and Job Satisfaction: The Role of Personal and Educational Experiences with Pediatric Dentistry

Purpose: to assess pediatric dentistry residents’ personal experiences prior to dental school, educational experiences during dental school and in pediatric dentistry programs, and their professional interest in treating adult patients and patients with special health care needs and their professional and job satisfaction. The relationships between personal/educational experiences and career interests and satisfaction was also explored.

Method: During the recruitment process of pediatric dentistry residents, an interesting question is which prior experiences might result in future pediatric dentists with high job satisfaction.

Results: 5.0% had a pediatric dentist as a family member; 57.6% had shadowed a pediatric dentist before dental school. The majority was satisfied with their exposure to pediatric dentistry faculty and their clinical and classroom-based pediatric dentistry dental school education. The majority reported that they learned a lot from pediatric dentistry instructors, residents and staff and had a high comfort level with treating pediatric patients and job satisfaction. While personal experiences prior to dental school and dental school educational experiences did not correlate with the pediatric dentistry interests and job satisfaction, educational experiences in pediatric dentistry programs correlated with level of comfort when treating challenging patients, positive attitudes towards treating patients with special healthcare needs and with job satisfaction.

Conclusion: Pediatric residents’ personal experiences prior to dental school and positive educational experiences in dental school do not correlate with their professional and career satisfaction. However, the fact that the absolute majority of pediatric dentistry residents evaluate their residency experiences quite positively and that these educational experiences are significantly correlated with professional interests, attitudes and career satisfaction is quite noteworthy.