Afternoon in Tuesday clinic

This afternoon I was in Tuesday clinic because I will not be here this Thursday. I had this really sweet man who had a lot of Class V restorations that were cracked and broken with a lot of ledges. He actually had quite a bit of calculus! The ultrasonic took me a long time because I was trying to stay away from all of the composites he had in his mouth, but he still had a lot of calculus. It is hard not to judge what type of classification a patient will be when you are talking to someone on the phone, or when you choose names off of the list, and I thought for sure he was a class V patient who came in every 6 months so there wouldn't be very much calculus and it wouldn't take me very long. I was wrong on that today. He had a lot of recession and toothbrush abrasion that had left ledges in the root surface. One of the more difficult class V patients I have seen.
Another exciting thing about this patient is that he needed to premed. This is the first patient I have seen while at Weber State that I have had to do more on the health history than just 1 medication or no medications at all. I thought I was going to make it through scotch free, but that didn't happen, and I was happy for the experience.
Now I need to start thinking about the next mockboards because I do not have a patient and I am not going to be in clinic until the next mockboard seeing patients.  Well I take that back, I will be here for a LA mockboard and finishing up a class IV. But I will have to use another tuesday afternoon clinic to do screenings so I can find me a mockboard patient! Dental Hygiene gods??? Can you hear me???? Now I need your help! Thanks!

Lots of stuff going on right now

Man, there is so much going on right now. I think it just need to take a break and.....
Breathe.
Yep I feel a lot better now.

Today was a pretty amazing day. I felt like I got a lot accomplished! My patient this morning was a Class III/IV. I numbed her UR and LR. It took me a long time to finish her and she was probably the toughest patient I have ever had. Her calculus was really tenacious. I used the triple bend, slimline and curved ultrasonics. I passed off 3 PE's (ultrasonic 3, RD #2, and LA #2). I don't have very many PE's left and that gives me comfort because there is so much other stuff going on. I am stressed because I have about 4 weeks that I won't be in clinic and I have other requirements that need to be met and patients that need to be in and finished. Phew! Oh yeah, and add to that all of the projects for Alexanders class, presenting for our research, and taking national boards.

Breathe....

My afternoon patient canceled so I called someone on the resource list and she was a IB, which was nice because I haven't fulfilled that requirement yet. She was pretty simple, but I missed 2 spots (lame) that were pretty subgingival. I definately wasn't scaling that far subgingivally, that's what I get. But I was really happy that she took me less than an hour including scale check, HHX, and conventional xrays. I might possibly be getting the handle of this!

But I am still stressed that I am not going to find my next board patient because of the limited time I am going to be in clinic. Dental hygiene gods?? Now is the time to step in and send in a board patient.

Mockboard #2!

Breath a sigh of relief, mockboard number 2 is over! I was so nervous yesterday night because I hadn't stressed and prepared like I did last time. But it all turned out because I came early and was able to get everything prepared. My patient showed up on time (what a reliable awesome patient) and we were able to get going right away. I had successes and failures today.

Failures (we will start with the worst and work our way up)
*Did an AWFUL left PSA, my needle got bent and Prof. Perry said I would have failed my boards. I hate when instructors say that because it totally deflates me. But it does give me something to work towards to be better.
*Didn't print my xrays off until this morning.
*Didn't sleep at all last night so I was reading my peers blogs the whole night.

Successes!!!
*Finished 2 quads of a pretty difficult Class III with LA in both quadrants.
*Only missed one spot!
*Finished with 20 minutes to spare

This mockboard went a little better than last time, I am just happy that I have passed both of my mockboards so far and that both of my patients have qualified. I was a little frustrated today because the spot I missed I couldn't get off and when my instructor came over, it felt the same before and after so I thought it was more root anatomy. But I am just fine with missing one spot.

I am grateful that this day is over and I think I am going to go home and take a much deserved nap. And then wake up and study again for the LA written because I am taking it Monday! Wish me luck!

p.s. took the mock LA written, and I don't feel like it was a very good representation of what we are going to see on the real board, but it is really nice to be able to have test questions and go over them and over them and practice them.

VA Day

Another day at the VA. My morning patient was a nice middle age lady who had a pretty regular mouth. No xrays, but I was able to pass off one of my desensitization PE's because she had recession and I put Colgate ProRelief on her teeth. I was happy that is actually works. I would have a really hard time if my teeth were sensitive and I wasn't able to brush make it through a dental appt without sensitivity pain. I am happy that we are able to provide services like that to our patients to make them more comfortable throughout their appt.
My other morning patient was pretty sad. It was a really old man and he had 9-10mm of facial recession and partial on the bottom and a full denture on the top. He had food and material alba in all of his embrasure spaces. I was actually feeling pretty nauseous about the whole appt. And he couldn't lay back so I did the whole appt bending over because the chair didn't go high enough for me to stand all the way up. But I feel like I really did him a service and I was able to really use my files and find them useful for the first time. They were perfect for his mouth! I was grateful that I could see how useful the files could  be in different situations.
My afternoon patient canceled. Enough said about the afternoon.

Mockboards are looming!

The day started out pretty intense...

I woke up late, like 7:35 late. FLEW out of bed, jumped into a pair of scrubs and hurried out the door to get to school. I made it here by 7:50 and got my chair all ready and then....my patient canceled.
But that's ok because some young boy came in at 10:10 and I was able to complete him (15 min scale time!) and take a pano xray. He was only 18 and he has been smoking for 4 years! Where does a 14 year old get cigarettes to smoke?

I was ravenous at lunch! So after a delicious Arby's sandwich, I came back in and found Brooke a mockboard patient!!! And I was able to clean 2 quads on him.

So after a stressful start, this day was actually a success I felt like. Tomorrow is screenings and I hope that we can find a few mockboard patients for everybody that needs them!

Crazy first day back in clinic

I scheduled my patient for today about a month ago and he said that he wanted to get everything done in one day. He is a class III so I told him that he would have to come back after lunch because I couldn't get everything done in the same day.
Here are my mistakes for the day. When he called back to confirm, he said he would see me at 8:30..I didn't even think about the fact that clinic starts at 8:00...So he was late.
Second mistake, he is a chatterbox so the health history took forever while he talked about his smoking habits. And I chatted right along with him.
Third mistake, I gave him anesthetic and I knew he was really nervous about it so it kinda gave me butterflies in my stomach. I picked up the syringe and the window was down...AUTOMATIC FAIL!  I should have taken it out and turned the window around before proceeding. I realized that I really feel out of sorts when I can't see how much anesthetic is going in or how fast. So I need to always remember to set my syringe up with the window right and to always check it before. My patient was also moving his head when I was giving the injection and that made me nervous because I was afraid of where the needle was at. Instructor Perry told me that I really don't need to be giving the LB or the incisive. Right now when I am counting injections, I really count on those other injections. Another reason I will like to be graduated is that I won't  have to do things to count points, I can just do what I feel is necessary.

First day back at the VA!

First day back at the VA and I am feeling a little rusty. My first patient of the morning was a guy that had been in to the VA before and had half of his mouth done and he needed to come in to finish and to have a comprehensive exam. CompEx at the VA are dreadful! They are so dang long, especially with the dental residents. I don't know why they feel like they have to reprobe and retake every xray. It is frustrating. Fortunately the dental resident didn't make me retake any xrays or reprobe, but he kept leaving the room to ask another dentist questions. Luckily I was able to finish 2 quads of class III and I was able to see the other morning patient and finish him.
The second patient was a middle age guy with really malposed teeth. Some of his teeth were so buccoverted that they weren't in the occlusion. It was pretty difficult to clean around those teeth because #22 didn't have any gums on the lingual side. Good experience with him.
My last patient of the day was a gem. At first I thought it was going to be a really long afternoon because she came in wheelchair (she was pretty overweight) and she kept telling me things I couldn't do because it would hurt her. But by the end, she was fantastic and she was a lot more friendly. We have Instructor Dixon and I really like that she is Nazi about doing a pre-rinse. I have never got into the habit of that and I wish I would do it more.