Last Thursday Clinic!!

Holy Smokes!!! The very last real clinic day of my life!!

I had a whole bunch of good stuff planned to do. 7 quads of a III. On Wednesday my morning patient cancelled. Shoot! I didn't have the will power to scramble to get someone so I left my morning open and planned to help out fellow students. That went well. I did help out and we didn't have CA so I really was helpful. Then in the middle of the morning guess who calls me??? My Afternoon patient! The one that has cancelled on my like 5 times this semester and Mr. I Can Only Stay For an Hour. Holy smokes! I was ticked!!!!!

Luckily I had a class IV scheduled for Friday or I would be short on my class threes. Lunch cheered me up too! It was a very good pot luck!!

I started helping out other students in the afternoon and then Amy found me a walk in. He was very talkative and fun. I was glad that I wouldn't have to sit in clinic ALL day accomplishing NOTHING. He was a class V. Nothing too exciting except for all his teeth are falling apart. He had a huge rock of an amalgam just rolling around in a tooth. I wanted to pull it out but he wouldn't let me.

It was a bit of an anti-climatic last day since I got so little done, but a good day as a whole.

2nd to the last day!!

In the morning I had my mom come in to help fulfill my PA requirement. I did a full mouth on her super quick so she could get back to work. No retakes might I add! Perry made a good point as he checked off my x-rays. If I had been taking them on my board patient I would have screwed up almost every one! Which is so true!! And already happened!! It was very nice to be relaxed and to just get the job done!

I had a very fun walk in after my mom. She was Spanish speaking and very kind! Easy Class V. She was teaching me Spanish though, which was very fun! She told me that if I went to Guatemala for 1 month I could learn Spanish. I want to do it so bad!!! She taught me... "le duele?" "No, no me duele" Which means did that hurt/did I hurt you? No, you didn't hurt me. She also taught me how to say Mueve a la isquiera and mueve a la derecha. Which means move to the left, and move to the right. She was a lot of fun!

In the afternoon I cruized through 2 more class V patient. One I had seen before. This couple is amazing!!! He is 81 and she is 76 and they are my idols!! So very nice! So very complimentary! They have lived amazing lives of service! I want to be like them when I am 80!!!

It is getting closer!

2 more clinic sessions left!!! YIKES!!

This morning went great! I saw a 1A, got that requirement finished! Then finished my board patient, I am so glad I was able to finish her! Karlie Nichols helped a ton with cleaning and setting up my room! Thank You!!!

I had a lot of fun with my 1A! I wasn't rushed at all so we disclosed and talked a lot about how to keep his mouth clean. He was layed back and fun so we had an enjoyable time!

The afternoon was a whole different story! My patient whom has cancelled twice already this semester walks in and tells me that he can only stay an hour today. WHAT??? I was instantly pissed! And I am sure that everyone in clinic knew about it! ha ha I wear my emotions on my sleeve, baby! So I have been trying to get his 4 quads of a class III for like a month now and have wasted 3 clinic days on him so far and will yet waste another one when he comes back in to finish the rest of his mouth on the last day of clinic. If he doesn't come.... I will egg his house!

On a good note I passed off 3 PE's with him. Perry helped me with my curved ultrasonics and put into perspective how lame they are. ha ha. I only used it on like 2 teeth and then switched to the norm. One thing that he taught me was that I am not supposed to use the inside to instrument with. It is the side with the most power... however that is why you don't use it... never thought of that. Perry said it just causes more damage. I do not want to be damaging any sulci so I will not be using the inside of the ulrasonic anymore. I liked using my files in the monster of a pocket that this man has!

So after my "oh by the way I can only stay an hour" man left. Here I was with 2 hours of clinic time just a-wasting. Precious time that I needed to be using to get requirements done! Well, I had a pity me party for a minute. Called the husband and told him about my sorrows... then popped into action and went in search of someone to take a PANO on. I walked downstair and found the first person I saw and asked if they would like a free pano. I am so lucky! She was the nicest girl in the world!! Phew! A little bit of sweat, almost a tear, 15 bucks and another requirement almost finished. yay!

I have yet to get all my injections finished. I think it pretty much sucks that I am way behind on a requirement because my patient's haven't wanted to be numbed. How is this my fault? Answer: It is not. But what do we do? Jump through the hoops. My wonderful classmates are so great to offer their injections to me, which has been a blessing!

I am taking my National Written on Wednesday. I feel another whirlwind of a week coming on. YIKES!

Only 3 more clinic sessions left!!

Holy smokes! I can't believe it is almost over!

Yesterday I had a hurried morning and a chill afternoon. My pt that I scheduled 3 weeks ago cancelled the night before. So I replaced him with my bro in law and my board pt. Justin's appt went well, except that he was 15 mins late. Then I had my board pt come in. She was seated at like 9:50. I only got 1 quad done, but had some fabulous help from Kayla with charting or else I wouldn't have even gotten to scale. This time what I did was explore and only scale where I felt calculus, instead of attacking each tooth with the same amount of vigor. I liked this method! I missed a couple spots, but I knew they were there and were super hard to get off. So I felt good about knowing where the calculus was, instead of just guessing. I want to be a competent explorer and I hope I get there someday! I love my board pt!! She is the sweetest lady! She will come back next week to finish everything.

My afternoon was one quad of a class III. I thought I had 2 quads to do or else I would have tried to fill my afternoon.... I'm not going to lie though, it was pleasant surprise to be done so early yesterday! I am sad though because I think her mandibular bridge from canine to canine is going to fall off soon!! The teeth are all fractured and sad looking! Darn it! It frustrates me! If she knew and understood more about teeth earlier in life, I know her mouth would be in better shape. There should be dental hygiene courses in high school!! Wouldn't that be fantastic??!!

BOARDS!!!

Holy Smokes!! That crazy two days is come and gone!!!! I can't believe that this week, the week of spring break second semester, is over!! I have been looking forward to/dreading this week for 2 whole years!!!

Anesthesia:

They were way ahead of time!!! Good thing my patient was flexible! I used my peer pal again since everything went well with mockboards and she was so willing. The examiners were so great! I really appreciated how chill and helpful they were! I did my PSA just fine, but the IA was a different story! I can't remember now which one I did first, it is a bit of a blur. Ok but this is how the IA went. "Site of penetration", "I see", "Proceed." Hit bone right off!! I told them I hit bone and was going to pull out and try again.... Second attempt..."Site of penetration", "I see", "Proceed." Hit bone right off!! AGAIN!!! Now I am nervous. The sweet examiner lady says, remember you have 3 tries to get in. And tells me that I can set the syringe down and take a break for a minute. I totally took that advice! I recapped, shook off all the nerves, and right as I was about to pick up the syringe again... Dr. Hansen's voice jumped in my head saying, "if you hit bone on the IA, go higher!" So go higher I did and bingo it went in! ha ha the word "bingo" actually escaped my lips while penetrating. ha ha ha. PASS!!!

Dental Hygiene Clinical:

Holy smokes! Talk about a nervous girl! The first time I stuck the explorer in my patient's mouth I was shaking like crazy!!! I don't want to narrate the whole thing cause that will take me forever. Instead I will give suggestions for future dental hygiene students that I learned while doing it.

• Don't stress about check in! The CE is so helpful and will get you all figured out.
• Probing took me forever! Save at least a half hour to do probing, recession, and to get your patient back to the desk.
• Don't pick a patient that has mal-postioned teeth. That was very difficult for me.
• Keep tabs on the clock.
• Have a plan of how you are going to clean.
• Don't have your patient come an hour early or else you will be staring at each other for 55 minutes waiting for it to be your turn. Embarrassing!

A day of Radiography

Today I doubled my PA's. My sister in law came in for a full mouth minus the bitewings. I did them conventional and didn't need any retakes so I was feeling good! Next my board patient came in for her x-rays. I think I had to retake every one... more than once. It was horrible!!!!! She didn't know how to have x-rays taken and she spoke spanish so I couldn't explain it very well. They were horrible!!! I was going crazy! Finally Marilyn saved my life and took them beautifully. I have no idea how she did it! I was so frustrated!!!!! How can I suck so bad on x-rays and then someone else comes in and does a perfect job? I don't get it. It was a pretty big bummer!!!

In the afternoon I had a class V. Should be easy right?? I tired the new schick sensor for the first time and it didn't do very well either. On the bitewings it could not get the bone levels of each arch. LAME! So I took 2 PA's to get the bone level. She was great to work with and was very complimentary. I was still way slow though! I should be able to clean a 5 in an hour by now, shouldn't I? The good thing with her was that I was able to do N2O. I wasn't even planning on it so that was a good surprise.

All in all, today I feel like a pretty sucky hygienist. Someday I hope it changes.

Final Mockboard

What a disaster!!!

I am so sick of having disasters! Every mockboard for me has been a disaster.

To sum up.... My x-rays sucked and I forgot that she had a long HH and I had not looked in her mouth before the day of mockboards.... So what happened?? I got her checked in 30 minutes late! Do you know what that means? I should have been docked an hour and a half of time. So that would have left me with 30 minutes to clean. Good thing the instructors were extra kind!

It ended up that my patient had lots more calculus than I thought, I was nervous she wouldn't qualify but ended up submitting more than probably was necessary. So that was an answer to prayer, she qualified. One bad thing was that she had bronchitis and suspected that she has asthma. I read in a book like the day before that you can't use any motorized instrument with someone with respiratory problems. So I didn't use the ultrasonic, despite the crazy look from Alexander when I told her I planned not to use it. I didn't want to risk getting her sick though.

I missed kind of a lot of spots, but the highlighter was kind to me so I ended up passing. I just feel like a dork wad when I keep having crazy freak out days. I feel like everyone else finishes calm as a cucumber and I am always sweating and late and sucking. I think I am in a slump.

Convention

I liked convention this week much better than ones I have been to before.

I chose to go to classes that would be interesting to me and keep me awake, versus those that may have more info, but I would be too sleepy to listen to any of it.

The first class I went to was by Gary Zelesky. His schpeel was on leading a passionate life and bringing your passion into your practice. He was a riot!! I really enjoyed his presentation! I even went to his afternoon session... which is saying something!! :)

The next day I went to see the memory man. I can't remember his name... guess I didn't learn much. He had some very great info to share. His focus was on remembering your patient's names. I think it would be a great program to start in an office if you have enough time and dedication to it.

LA mockboard!

We had our LA mockboard today. I was pretty darn nervous because I don't have very many injection experiences! My Peer Pal was my patient and she was so wonderful!!! Totally chill and willing to do anything for me! I love her!!! I was nervous because she has a pretty small mouth, but all went well!

I did both injections just fine and passed!! Woo woo!!! I didn't have any crazy mishaps like a bunch of other people had, which makes me feel good and bad. Good because I didn't mess up, but bad because what if something crazy happens during the real board and I don't know what to do to fix it. Oh wells though! I hope it all goes well!!

Thank you MeChel!!

MeChel gave me a 1A for today. Thank you!!! It is so hard to find kids to come in! This boy was pretty fun! He acted tough at first and didn't talk much, but I was able to warm up to him and get him talking more. He was pretty concerned about how to care for his teeth! It was cute! His mom is way concerned too! She brings her kids in each year, has x-rays taken, and brings them to the dentist after to get their work done. Way to go mom getting stuff done for cheaper!! I was hoping to get a sealant done on him. Lucky me, I did like 6 sealants! ha ha more than I bargained for, but I was happy to do it. I had an assistant for most of them which was very nice!!

I love checking things off the list of things to do!!!

Week #4 of 15!

I am too stressed and worried about the Weber Human Services Service Project that I am planning tomorrow to think about blogging much.

I did learn something golden today... If you can only feel the calculus one way (up) then it is probably CEJ. If you can feel it from both directions (up and down) it is probably calculus! Such wonderful advice from J Wold.

Idiot moment of the day.... I put Arestin in the wrong pocket! ha ha I'm a dummy!

Week #3 of 15... MOCKBOARD!!

Today was mockboard #2. I had a little bit of PTSD from last time.

Luckily Karen found me a mockboard that qualified and was great!! Thank You KAREN! The only problem was that we found her at the very last minute at the screening so I had to take x-rays on the day of. Which made me in a huge hurry again. Darn it! Luckily I was like 2 minutes late and Mr. Solomon let me squeak by. :)

As far as cleaning.... 2 hours looking at one quad is much too long!! I lasted like 1:15. It is great that we have that long... but I can't look at 9 teeth that long! I sure get frustrated that I don't always know what calculus feels like. Being the student examiner is a great practice, but we rarely feel exactly the same thing as the instructor. This really gets me mad!! ha ha. How will I ever know??

Anyhoo.... waiting for my pt to come back from the examiners at scale check was the longest 20 minutes of my life!! I kept thinking that she was going to bring me back a sticky with 18 spots of missed calculus again!! Yikes I was freaking out! I only missed 2 spots! WAHOO!! I passed!

So glad that day is over!!

Week #2 of 15

Today was a day of crushed dreams!

My FM class IV was really a class V.... darn! She was classified last semester and when I saw her again today it was clear that she was not a true class IV. I had to suck it up and get over it.... I am still working on getting over it.

It was a good appointment in that I used my gracey's almost the whole time. I have never used them so much in one appt. I really liked using them too! Surprise, surprise! I worked slow and took my time. I enjoyed the appointment a lot! I like being able to slow down and not stress and pay attention to detail.

I saw some things that I haven't seen before. She had greyish blackish smudge looking things just under the gingiva on a couple of teeth. I talked to Perry about it and he said, try taking it off, if you feel that you are in the right place and nothing is coming off, then move on. So that is what I did. A lot of it stayed and some come off.

I had to instrument a ton on root surface today which was also new. It is weird when the tooth is so skinny!!

My afternoon patient is a gem! I really liked her!!

UNFORTUNATELY.... she had a cold sore :( Pt was dismissed. Sad Day!!

So what did I learn today? Some gracey technique and root debridement technique.

It is sucky feeling behind on quads...........

Week #1 of 15

First blog post of the last semester of my life... maybe. :)

• I wanted to start out kinda easy so I had my brother come in today. I was pretty scared about starting up again. I did a really good job of planning out the appointment though so I wasn't too scatter-brained. I passed off the Velscope PE as well as the Caries Risk Assessment PE. Woo! 2 PE's on the first day of clinic!

• For the Velscope PE Prof. Perry helped me to remember the major areas of the mouth for oral cancer. #1 Posterior Lateral borders of the tongue and #2 floor of the mouth. All of the other areas tie for 3rd such as buccal mucosa, tonsilar pillars, vestibule. Good thing to know!

• As I was cleaning my brother Prof. P also taught me a new place to set my gauze and how to wipe it to save time. Place it on the neck and use my middle or fulcrum finger to wipe the face of the instrument, not the tip!
  

• 20 minutes for probing is TOO long!! Dern!!

• The papers go in the chart... white, green, blue!! Am I color blind?? NOPE!
  

• I started my eaglesoft pt today... I hope that she shows up next time I schedule her so I can really use her for it!
  

• My afternoon pt cancelled this morning so I puttered during afternoon clinic... this better not happen very much more often!!
  

• The End