LAST CLINIC DAY!!!!!

Yeah!! Last clinic day! I am so excited! And I am even more excited because today went so smoothly and I was able to see a 1B patient, do xrays, do OD, and complete scaling before first scale check! That is pretty darn good in my book. Definitly not 25 minutes! But pretty darn good for me. Today is the best I have felt in clinic I think so far. I felt really comfortable, now I hope I can feel good when I start 2ND YEAR CLINIC!!! I am officiall/clinically a second year!

Thank you Tori!

2 Clinic days left, 2 clinic days left, 2 clinic days left....YIPEE!!!! I am so happy that this semester is almost over! I had a little minor setback on Saturday night when my final requirements for class III canceled his appointment. But then an angel came in and saved the day and offered me the rest of my requirements on a patient that she has. The OD was already completed and the only thing left to do is just get that dang calculus off! So I am excited to see how today goes! If today goes well then I will be floating on cloud 9! I am also going to pass of my final PE's. I haven't passed of a PE in about a month because I usually did 2 every clinic session and then I had to wait to have the patient come in to pass off certain PE's. Wish me luck! If today goes well then Wednesday should be a dream!
Goal:
1. Practice and perfect using Gracey's. (I have only used one of them once...)
2. Be efficient with my time.
3. Not have anymore nightmares concerning clinic!

1B=25 minutes?!?!?!?!?

I had a patient come in today that I have previously seen. She has a flipper so I brought her in about a month ago and cleaned her flipper, but that happened to be one of my craziest days in clinic so I wasn't able to do anything else on her. So I had her come back in today and it took me pretty much all of clinic to complete her. In our pod wrap they said that we should be completing a 1B patient in 25 minutes..... I am a failure. Let me add up my times to see how long she took me. (1-2:30-ish) Yeah I should have been able to do a class II patient in that time as well. My only defense is that this patient had a ton of calculus everwhere and her lower ant had really thick stain all across the facials. In my whole experience I have never had a 1B patient who was a typical easy 1B. All of my patients have either had a ton of calculus (should have been class II but no bone loss), or their had full mouth ortho. Luckily I have all of my requirements and the extra time didn't really kill my score. But I do feel pretty down on myself that it takes me 2-3 times longer then it should. That time also includes checks that I had to wait for, so I guess that shouldn't count against me. But I sure as heck didn't get all of her quads done in 25 minutes! I hope they let me into senior year!

Goals:
1. be more efficient when I am scaling, don't go over the same spot a bajillion times, make good scale strokes and be more confident in myself.
2. Use my time more wisely (except when I am all of the way done and still waiting for checks).
3. Give better OHI information.

I see a faint light at the end of the tunnel

I think there is a light somewhere??? It seems like I get everything in order to go for my patients and scheduling, and then somebody doesn't show up, or they show up and they are a totally different classification then I need, or they have full ortho and I was hoping to do a pano on them... I really wish we could just do the best treatment for each patient and not have to worry about the requirements that we need to accomplish. We are so worried about getting a certain amount of quads, getting all of the right classifications, passing of PE's and taking xrays that I think the patient's sometimes fall by the wayside. Something that really bugs me is how patients are passed around according to their classification and then they end up with 1 or 2 quads that don't get completed this semester because somebody didn't need them. I don't like that our requirements trump patient care.  I completely understand that we need to have experiences with different types of mouths and that we can't see the same type of mouth the whole time, but to turn somebody away for another 5-6 months because they aren't a class III seems pretty ridiculous. I have to remember that this is a learning institution and that when I get out in the real world I will do my best to make sure this doesn't happen in the practice I work in. There is my soapbox for the day!
Goals in clinic (for you Marianne)
1. Be better at communicating if I am sharing the patient for requirements
2. Be faster, stop chatting so much, they really don't care what you have to say, they just want their teeth cleaned.
3. Keep cool, we are all going to make it through this semester and become seniors together!