You notice that your nurse is disengaged in her tasks, what are the implications of this?

This would have implications on three main things: the dental team, the profession of dentistry, and most importantly the patient.

A disengaged nurse will make things run very slow in the dental clinic. This puts strain on the dental team because other members of staff will have to take over the nurse's roles. This can also lower team morale and effect communication between staff as things may become more hectic.

The profession can also be negatively impacted because all members of the dental team represent the dentistry. A dysfunctional team will be picked up by the patient which puts dentistry in a negative light, its also unprofessional. This can make patients lose trust in dental professionals.

Last but not least, this has implications on patient safety. The whole aim of dentistry is to put the patient first, if your nurse is not being a good team member this can endanger a patient. For example, your nurse could forget to disinfect the dental chair, and the next patient could contract a transmissible disease.

You want to point out these implications to the interviewer and also mention how you want to overcome this issue. Resolving issues like this needs good communication and leadership skills and it would be beneficial if you could involve anecdotes of how you've shown these skills before.

Suggested structure for this answer:

• Outline the main implications of the issue
• Expand on the points mentioned
• Talk about how you would resolve the issue