Thinking of becoming a dental nurse?!

Thinking of becoming a dental nurse?

I am thinking of training to become a dental nurse now my child is 5. Any dental nurses out there that can give me advice/their views? I live in central London.

Good for you, i've been a D/N for many years and still love it!
Your local paper might be a good place to start, if you see a job advertised for a trainee d/n apply for it, or you could try either Eastmans/Guys/Kings dental hospitals, they actually both training hospitals and you'll be fully trained on the job.
I started out in General Practice and am still there, i see between 16-20 patients a day, depending on their treatments,
and it can be tough going as you have to be alert and on the ball at all times, there's no room for error.
When you work in a hospital enviroment you probably wont see as many patients, as most of the patients are normally refered to be sedated so the sessions are usually longer than in general practice, so if you go from Community nursing to general it can often be a shock to see a vast number of patients in one day!
You need a GSOH, excellent communcation skills, as you'll be meeting people from a very broad section of the community and you need to be able to communicate on all levels.
Once you become employed as a d/n, you'll have to get yourself enroled on a cousre, by 2008 d/n's in the UK have to be registered with the GDC(general dental council)
you will have to sit and pass either the national exam for d/n's or the NVQ exam!
To be honest with you as jobs go i really enjoy what i do, and despite the many years i've been nursing, i still learn something new every day, there's always some new technique or equipment out there to play with!
Hope this has been of some help, and good luck, i really hope you find yourself something.