What does the VA mean to you???

I will tell you what the VA means to me.... Old men with fuzzy teeth!! ha ha I feel like this is all I get there. Plaque, plaque, plaque!!! Yuck, yuck, yuck!! Don't get me wrong, I have not had a patient there that I didn't have a blast with! I don't know why but I really love working there. My question is, Why don't they care that they have fuzz all over their teeth? I know you can feel it, taste it, and see it. Isn't it a wonderful feeling to slide your teeth across minty fresh brushed and flossed pearly whites??? I sure think it is! If I was the daughter of one of these men I would call my dad every morning and night to remind him to brush his teeth! LIFE IS BETTER WITH CLEAN TEETH!!!

Ok, maybe we can get into some reflection of the actually cleaning. I still don't love the ultrasonic, but it is handy to help remove plaque. I still need to remember to shove the tip all the way into the pocket.

My patients weren't too tough. The biggest thing I had to work around was personalities. ha ha but I enjoy that!

My PM patient kept hitting on me and grabbed me into a big hug when I called him out the waiting room... kinda yucky! But he kinda stopped by the end of the appt.

What? My patient cancelled??

So last week my afternoon patient cancelled and since I had already done the OD I had to get her back in so I scheduled her for my am patient. 8 0'clock rolls around, no pt. 8:15 rolls around, no pt and no answer on her cell. 8:16 rolls around and Karen lets me know that she called in and will not be coming. WHAT?!! I was not having that again! I called her right up and convinced her to come. haha.. I am so glad that she lives so close to the school!

Since I only had to scale I had a lot of extra time which I loved! I was able to talk to her a lot about what is going on in her mouth. We talked about perio, brushing, flossing, dry mouth, caries, bruxing, and how to take care of some huge fractured teeth with an end tuft brush and maybe a syringe. I know that sounds like a lot... but I know she understood and was grateful for the instruction. I felt like a pretty good teacher, it was fun! I like it when we can talk more during the appointments.

My afternoon patient was my miracle 3 found by Brooke. I really enjoyed cleaning his teeth too! I am learning so much about how to get angles right and how to ultrasonic correctly and how to use graceys it is wonderful! So the coolest thing happened! I missed the mesial of 18 and distal of 19... which wasn't the cool part. The cool part was when Dr. Hanson showed me that you can get the right angles by going to 12 o-clock and doing the "V- of the hand grasp". That was so much easier than reaching over and not being able to see it very well. I was so impressed when she had me move there! I hope I never forget that one! It was really fun to work in deeper pockets too! I was so worn out by the end of the day though! My fingers were about to fall off! One thing I know that I need to work on with harder patients is to make sure that the ultrasonic gets all the way down into the pockets. I am starting to like that thing... sort of. ha ha.

It felt like a very productive day! Dr. Hanson said she was impressed and could tell that I have been getting better, I finished both patients on time, got 2 PE's done, and finished my 3! Woo!

I like this cleaning teeth thing! :)

Lessons learned at the VA

So the VA was stupendous this week!! I loved it! I have been so lucky not to have any raunchy patients! I totally loved both my patients today! One thing that I am so excited about for when I actually work in an office are all the great friends that I am going to have! I would love to see my hilarious afternoon patient every 4 months!! I am excited about the future relationships made in the dental chair!

I did have a few great "ah ha" moments today!

#1 When your patient had nasty breath and brown coated tongue..... TALK ABOUT TONGUE BRUSHING!!! I had a nasty in the morning! McConaughy even gave me props for being able to stay in his mouth for that long! When patients have that nasty brown tongue I bet their mouths never ever feel or taste clean. How could they? That is actually quite sad!! I can not believe that I did not address tongue brushing with that patient! Slap my wrists someone!

#2 Talk quieter when you say dumb things like "potty break" to your 45 year old patient! You never know who is within hearing distance and who will rat you on her blog! ha ha ha. I was kicking myself the whole time he was in the bathroom about saying potty break!!! I am such a nerd!

#3 I guess I only had 2 "ah ha" moments. :)

I am liking the VA more and more. It is a bit weird with all the regulations and stuff... but those worries are paled by trying to communicate in Spanish with patients at WSU.

Halloween Party

Hey ladies!

I just thought I would pass on that Dr. Hanson said that our Halloween party was they best one she's been to!! Thank you everyone for all your help in making our party so fun!! I loved it!

"Someone took all my money" and "Oh! I forgot to call you!"

Words of both of today's cancellations! Dern it!!

AM: She said someone took all her money. I think this was a legit excuse too. She kept going on and on about it on the phone with me. I would freak if the bank called me and told me all my money was gone!

So I took MeChel's blood glucose and and did the Diagnodent on her as well. 2 PE's. Not bad.

PM: "Oh I forgot to call you!" Pah! It just so happens I found a great patient in your absence!

Well I should rephrase that... Brooke found me an amazing patient instead. Class 3 baby! Woo! I love it when patients fall asleep when I am probing, it totally makes me feel like I am doing a good job since they aren't going through the roof! But I think that my posture sucked partly because he was sleeping and not keeping his head in the right place. I timed my probing and today it took me 30 minutes! Where does the time go? It was harder though cause I had 3rd molars and deep pockets that I am not used to. But still. I need to pick up the pace. I didn't get to clean him today since he got there late and left early because Brooke finished much faster than I did. Just doing an OD at an appointment totally sucks though! If I had another hour though, I bet I would have gotten a couple quads done... maybe just one.

Anyways, today was pretty good, despite the disappointment.

Reschedule the no shows? or not?

Advantages of being a TA

So today the juniors went over air powder polish, selective polish, and fluoride varnish. Being a TA has helped me out a lot! It is so good to go over stuff that we learned a year ago to remember the strategies and techniques once learned and forgotten.

I don't know if I would ever pull out the air powder polisher again if I had not had the opportunity to go over it again in junior clinic. Professor Costley asked me to grab all the stuff for it, powder, tips, bonnets, and such.... I had no idea where it all was. I do now though! We also had to trouble shoot a lot to get the darn things working! Doing that gives me so much more confidence to pull one out by myself and get it going. We ran into a lot of different problems and could fix most of them after a little bit of tinkering. I still don't like the thing... but I would feel more confident using one now.

As far as things learned from teaching to use the hand piece and prophy angle... I just learned that I have actually learned how to use it. ha ha. One thing that I am going to start trying is holding the paste in my other hand while I polish so that it doesn't take so long to get more paste. A lot of the juniors do that.

I didn't really have any "ah-ha" moments from fluoride varnish, except that when Costley introduced it she said that in junior clinic we place it on all surfaces of the teeth, and in senior clinic we only do it on the buccal... I was never told that. ha ha. Or was not listening when we were told that. Does everyone only place it on the buccal? Why not put it everywhere?

A day of cancels turned into a positive day.

So my afternoon patient cancelled the night before, and when I came into clinic today I realized that Stef had the same patient scheduled for the morning. FART! I pretty much wanted to cry.

All was made amends though. My husband came in this morning and one of the translators called my mockboard patient and she was able to come in the morning.

It was great to get back to cleaning a 1B this morning. I felt like I made pretty good time. I also used the ultrasonic and actually liked it! Weird! I need to get that fellow flossing!!

I was very nervous about bringing back my mockboard patient today! I totally bombed the mockboard and had no idea I was doing so bad until I got that blasted sticky back. I was excited in a way as well though, because I knew how much calculus she had and wanted to get it all off.

I asked for some help from Prof. Alexander and she was so great to sit with me and make sure I knew what I was feeling and could get it off. I struggle at exploring, but felt tons better about it by the end of the appointment. I think that I lay my explorer down too much and do not feel with the tip enough. I better get better at this quick!

I got a lot of help with instrumentation as well! I am starting to figure out the graceys's which is exciting! With instrumentation my biggest problem was my activation stroke. I keep pulling the toe out. I teach first years how not to do that every Wednesday and here I am guilty as charged! I was able to watch Pro. Alexander instrument and learned a lot. When will I know all the tricks? I do not know, but I am excited to know that there are tricks!

This lady had some really hard calculus to get off! I was sticking everything I could up there and still struggled.

I feel accomplished that I finished her!