Before Jeevan and Nuha joined Kiroku's clinical team, they were dental foundation trainees trying to survive note-taking, just like the DFTs who use Kiroku today. We sat down with them to talk about how they first found Kiroku, and what changed once they started using it.
Two different ways into dental foundation trainee note-taking
Jeevan found Kiroku out of necessity. "I was spending loads of time after work and my lunches doing notes," he told us, until his practice manager, who'd seen Kiroku on Instagram, recommended it.
Nuha found it earlier, in her first two weeks as a DFT, through a talk given by Kiroku’s Co-Founder, Hannah, to her cohort. "I was like, thank God," she said. "I remember notes being such a big deal at university, and I was like, I need something that I don't have to think about."
While they found out about Kiroku through different means, both of them had the same underlying problem: new dentists arrive with a huge amount to learn, and note-taking shouldn't be the thing that gets in the way of it.
The first weeks of DFT are the easiest to fix
Both agreed that early DFT is the moment that is easiest to fix. As Jeevan put it, dentists who join Kiroku later are "sometimes stuck in a workflow" that they don't realise how much the template library could help them.
Getting good habits in place before they are set is, in his words, worth doing, otherwise "you start causing more issues later down the line."
Nuha felt the same. Fresh out of a break from seeing patients, she leaned on the prompts in the templates as a kind of checklist. "I was like, okay, cool, I've forgotten to ask X, Y and Z. I will ask it now." Those prompts, she said, "actually really helped as a DFT, especially in the first month."
Notes have a worse reputation than they deserve
Jeevan pushed back on the idea that note-taking is inherently a chore. Most people go into dentistry treating notes as a box to tick, he said, when they were actually meant to do something useful: help you remember what happened, so the next appointment goes smoothly.
Once that clicks, the anxiety around getting notes "right" tends to fall away, and notes stop competing for headspace that should be going to the patient in front of you.
The same instinct, to treat something unfamiliar as scarier than it needs to be, came up again when the conversation turned to newer technology more broadly.
"Dentistry is changing, and it’s not just dentistry, it’s dental technology as well. So if you’re scared of AI, well, you’re going to end up using AI at some point. You’re gonna end up using some form of new technology throughout your career." Nuha said. "So be ahead of the change."
Start with clickable notes, then try voice
Neither of them jumped straight to voice. Nuha built her habits on the standard Kiroku library templates, available to all users, before eventually moving to Freestyle.
She made the point that as she developed her clinical knowledge through training days, she made sure to update her templates to reflect her learnings. This is what has made the transition to voice even easier - Kiroku uses the template to structure the note output, so Nuha’s notes are still written in the way that she wants.
Jeevan still mostly uses clickable templates today, by preference rather than necessity: "I just like the way certain things are written... I just need things to be written how I want it."
That's the point they both kept coming back to: Kiroku doesn't ask you to change everything at once. You can start with clicking, move to Copilot, and try Freestyle when you're ready, on your own timeline.
Voice notes changed more than Nuha's note-taking
For Nuha, that eventual move to voice changed more than her note-taking. "My patient communication, all of my patient interactions, has completely changed since I've been using voice," she said. "I'm not concerned about what notes I'm going to write... I actually sit in front of my patient and I talk to them."
The takeaway for DFTs starting today
Jeevan and Nuha started exactly where our newest DFT users start now: overwhelmed by notes, unsure where to begin. What worked for them was starting small, at their own pace, and trusting that the rest could come later.
If you're a recently graduated dentist, hygienist or therapist, you could get your training year, or your first year in practice, for free or half price. That means you could get up to £400 worth of Kiroku access for free!
If you're a dental professional in the UK, you can see the most appropriate offer for you here. Studying at a UK dental school? Make sure that you've signed up to get notified when your new graduate offer goes live, as we run this offer every year.
If you're in Australia or New Zealand, you too can get 50% off Kiroku for your first year in practice. Find more details for Aussie and Kiwi graduates on our dedicated page.
