Little Turds

Thursday I had 2 little kids from the same family come in. My first pt was 8 years old and was really excited to be here because he could look all around the place. He was a good x-ray patient tho and we got 2 good bwx. He was my 1A eaglesoft pt. Then his older brother who is 10 was my pt. In Prof. Perry's words, he was a little turd. ha ha. You would think that a 10 year old could handle a simple cleaning...but he was not very helpful. ha ha. Good thing is that I finished my requirements for 1As!

IT CLICKED!

So yesterday in class Prof. Hanson gave a little lesson on the instruments and how to use them. We all brought our instruments and typodonts and practiced and it made sense all of a sudden to me. Then today in clinic I was jsut able to recall what we had talked about. I was able to feel the calc with my explorer and pop it off. Its like the last two weeks all just combined at once and made complete sense. It was so awesome! My morning patient was a class II and I finished her whole mouth without any errors! Then my afternoon patient was 2 more quads of a class II that I hadn't finished 2 weeks ago. And I only missed one spot. So I felt so good about my progress today! It was just fantastic!

VA day

I have a love/hate relationship with the VA. I love the new building and equipment. I love getting patients that are higher classifications. I love that Prof. Hanson is so helpful. I love the low-stress environment. I hate the non-ergonomic computer screen and I hate having to wait and wait and wait for the dentist to come give an exam. My morning patient today had to wait over an hour total for scale checks and dr. exams. I try to be very professional in my interaction with patients even though I am still a student. But it makes me look bad when I have to wait around an hour for a simple exam. I mean I know they are busy but it seemed like everyone else got their checks and exams taken care of quickly and I was the last one done by far this morning! I felt bad for my patient. Luckily my fellow students are very cool and helped me out a lot throughout the appoinement by cleaning up my room and stuff. I do love the VA though. No stress at all. This morning my patient was 1 quad of a 3 and 3 quads of a 2 and my afternoon patient was a very easy 5. It was a fun day!

This is gonna be great!

So today my first patient came and turned out to be a candidate for mockboards which is great! She has really tenacious calculus though. I scaled half of her mouth today and I think next time I'm gonna offer LA to her. Then my afternoon patient was a different story. He is on a pre-med for a heart murmur and a type II diabetic. He came in with a BGL of 365! So I spent 2 hours getting the doctor's consult and all that stuff worked out. But I did get a FMX + BWX on him which was great.

On a different note...in all my years of working in the dental field I have never once gotten sick to my stomach...until today. My patient had plaque that was growing plaque. As I was exploring, chunks and I mean chunks of PLAQUE were coming off. It was sick. It makes me wonder how someone can walk around and be social enough to as least be talking to someone and not want to have a clean mouth. He wasn't really even that bad perio-wise...he was only a class II. But I mean chunks...the size of...well I don't want you to get sick by picturing it.

Good Day!

Today was a great day. My first patient was an extremely easy 1B so I was able to clean her, take BWX and a FMX and pass off a PE. It was great. Then my afternoon patient failed but luckily there was a guy who had just come to see if he could get in so I saw him. He was a class 2. I only got UR and LR finished on him though because we got started late. I hope he comes back in two weeks. I hope he doesn't fail like my patient today. It kinda makes me annoyed...cuz I just scheduled her on Friday and called her yesterday to remind her and she still didn't come today. oh well...it all worked out! :o)

We're Back!

Tuesday was my first day back in clinic since the summer. It was nice how our professors set it up...we just had time to set up our area and sharpen our instruments. Then we got to do an OD on our partners which was nice because we got to get readjusted to our units and such. Then on Thursday I went to the VA and I was nervous cuz I didn't know what to expect but it was AWESOME!!!! It was really fun and the patients were great. I got some good experience right off the bat and Kami Hanson was great to work with! She really knows how to demonstrate the practical side of hygiene. I think I'm really gonna like this year. It will be a lot different than last year. Hopefully not as stressful and not so new so it will be good. The only thing I'm worried about is that they moved boards up to during spring break so we have a month and a half less to practice and find board patients. But the good thing will be that we will be licensed before anyone else!

China

Yay! I'm going to China tomorrow! Check it out at wsuchinatravel2009.blogspot.com!