This March, Pacific Dental Services opened their doors for American Career College dental assisting students to provide some hands-on training with their state-of-the-art equipment.
About 30 ACC-Orange County students, led by DA extern coordinator and adjunct instructor Deborah Taylor, visited the headquarters for Pacific Dental Services in Irvine and had an opportunity to learn about the company's CEREC system. PDS's main headquarters is home to more than 600 employees, who handle the business operations of more than 700 offices in 20 states.
The CEREC system workstations cost roughly $100,000 each and for the company to open their doors for our students was a wonderful opportunity, ACC-OC DA program director Cecilia Cabrera said. It is also one of the state requirements for the program. Students were given a certificate of attendance that they can include on their portfolio.
"All the students were so happy with the experience. One of them already told me that now she knows she loves dentistry, which was really nice to hear," Cabrera added. "Students not only learned something that day, but one senior student already received a call today for a possible position for an externship to hire."
Cabrera said she and PDS are already planning for the evening DA students to visit and for next year's schedule. PDA also wants the students to return by their headquarters during Dental Assistant Week to make it more meaningful.
"They want to have this training with our students on a regular basis. They are very happy with our students that they wanted to partner with us," Cabrera said.
