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!!!