The Road to RDH: NBDHE Results and Advice!

Oh and did I mention that I PASSED MY NATIONAL BOARD? :) There is a light at the end of the tunnel! Graduating, though awesome, was a little anticlimactic because I'm not done yet! Bah! I still have clinicals and my jurisprudence exam! BUT I wanted to offer a little bit of advice about NDBHE.

With any big task, there comes preparation, and boards are NO exception.

Even if you don't know it, you are preparing for NBDHE from the first day of prerequisite courses for your program. YES, YOUR PREREQUISITES ARE ON THE EXAM!! (But no, there aren't very many questions about them on there.) The Joint Commission on National Dental Examinations is kind enough to post a breakdown of the questions on ADA's website every year. This year, it looked something like this:

Anatomy-16
Physiology-5
Biochemistry and Nutrition-6
Microbiology and Immunology-10
Pathology-13
Pharmacology-10
Assessing Patient Characteristics-17
Radiology-13
Planning and Managing Dental Hygiene Care-34
Performing Periodontal Procedures-18
Using Preventive Agents-9
Providing Supportive Treatment Services-7
Professional Responsibility-18
Community Health/Research-24

^That's quite a few topics! It's almost overwhelming when you look at it, right? But guess what! You can do this!!!

I will be honest, I did not really study for NBDHE. (Gasp! I didn't WHAT?)
Yes, I will say it again. I didn't really study for national boards.

But before you freak out, I WILL say that I reviewed quite a bit for NBDHE. I've noticed that every class in my dental hygiene education built on each other, so I felt like I was constantly getting review class after class and the information was pretty drilled into me. That being said, I would like to offer up some advice:

Tip #1: DON'T STRESS and Be Confident!
The biggest and most important tip of all is relax! Seriously!! You know this stuff, you do it every day at school! You have been preparing for these exams for a couple years now. You've adequately prepared for your exam by going to class class, seeking difficult patients, and studying! You've worked hard and it will pay off. Be confident in your abilities. You can do it!

Tip #2: Know Yourself
When you are preparing for the NBDHE, or any big exam, it is important to know yourself. Know your study habits, know your weak points, and get cracking!

For me, quizzes and tests, trial and error, etc are the only ways I can REALLY memorize information. I also have the attention span of a gnat when it comes to studying, so I had to narrow down my study list as much as possible and trick myself into thinking it's a game. If I don't, I won't retain a single word of what I read.

I examined this list of topics above and ordered everything by importance (ie: how many questions they had and how well I knew the topics). This list showed me that 116 of the questions are on provision of clinical dental hygiene services. STUFF YOU DO EVERY DAY. YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS ANWAY! :) That was a comfort for me and I chose not to study those categories. The way I saw it, if I still don't know how to assess and properly treat a patient at this point, I don't deserve to be a hygienist. The rest of the topics, on the other hand, were pretty broad subjects to only snag 5-10ish questions from. There is no way I could possibly study EVERYTHING and be prepared for any 5 questions they threw at me, so I decided not to stress myself out and to just play some review games instead. Here is how I reviewed for NBDHE:


1. AndyRDH                                                               2. Pass It!

When you take the mock boards or test by subject, it will average out your score for you and say "Based on last year's average results, you would get a score of ___ on Boards." AndyRDH was a bad influence on me. AndyRDH told me I would get 99s and so I let myself believe it, because stress relief. But that is also why I LOVE THIS APP. It is so informative, offers rationale for why certain answers are right and wrong, includes radiograph interpretation, and so many other perks. There is no way NOT to love this app and for that reason I will never delete it from my phone. Ever. Only $10 at the app store, this app is WELL WORTH IT!

The Pass It! app isn't as kind. It was a better influence on me because it tells you your raw score. It doesn't tell you rationale. You need to look it up and study on your own, which is also nice because then it forces you to study. It clues you in to what you need help on, and then you are responsible for taking care of that on your own. It tracks your quiz results for you and helps you see if you are improving or not. I loved that. I also really loved their anesthesia section. It was THE BEST. Both of these apps were WELL WORTH the $10 I spent on each of them. 5 stars for each, highly recommended!

Tip #2: Eliminate Distractions

I would play these board review apps during 10 minute breaks between classes, during the drive to and from school (if I wasn't the one driving carpool) and whenever I was bored. I deleted all other games from my phone, Instagram, Snapchat, and any other distractors so these apps were literally my only options. I would like to include an excerpt from HygieneEdge, one of my favorite blogs, because my previous instructor could not have said it any better:

Does this story next sound familiar?  You have planned two hours for some study time and then your phone dings…20 minutes later you crack open your book ready to start. Your phone then flashes; a new Instagram post…15 minutes gone.  Beep beep......a post reminds you to check that video on Facebook…another 45 minutes, poof, gone. You have 40 minutes left of study time and you decide to get serious so you Snapchat a pic of you studying hard with your book. You snap another pic of you chewing your pencil and the next thing you know study time is UP. Does this all sound familiar? When I was studying for boards I had a classmate change my Facebook password so I couldn't log in for 2 months. It saved me time, sanity and helped me focus. To this day my password is still boards stuck with my classmate's birthday digits at the end. I smile every time I have to type it in. 

Tip #3: Focus on Your Weaknesses
I kind of mentioned this above, but it is so so important to focus on your weak areas. Don't waste your time studying something you know when you could be studying something you need help on!! I hadn't taken community in a while so I made sure to study up on that again, pharmacology because studying for that is like trying to memorize a dictionary for a different language, etc. I've found Board Review books are awesome crash courses in the topics you don't remember as well as others.

When I actually felt the need to study topics, I used this book:

Don't be fooled by this picture, the book is PURPLE. I think I used the 2012-2013 edition. I don't know how much it costs, because I got my hands on it for free (I checked it out from the library) but if you really are itching to go out and buy something, I recommend this text!

SOMETHING I WISH I KNEW BEFORE STUDYING FOR BOARDS!

You aren't Just Studying for Boards!

Newsflash! Dental hygiene is our PROFESSION! We will need to retain a lot of this information for life. I already regret not studying for Boards as if it were, so now that I have all of this newfound free time, I am going to study again because I want to be the best dental hygienist EVER. I passed the exam, but that isn't enough. If it were enough, we wouldn't be required to do continuing education every year!

Best of luck to you as you prepare for this exam!!! Be confident, you've got this!