I am doing another make up day today due to the clinic days that I will not be able to attend. I love being with the tuesday girls because some of them I don't see very often! I like this switching thing and being able to see everyone.
So I had a pretty successful afternoon. At the beginning of the afternoon I was hoping that my patient wouldn't show up because I suddenly didn't feel in the mood to be cleaning teeth. But I was very grateful that she showed up because she is a potential board patient! She has all of the calculus, but she is pregnant and only has the 4bwx and 2 anterior PA's so if anyone wants her, then they will automatically have a 4 pt deduction to start boards with. So far nobody has wanted to take that risk. I totally understand, I wouldn't want to feel doomed from the very start. But the patient is so nice and reliable and she really wants to get her teeth cleaned so I asked her if she would mind being a back up patient, and she doesn't mind doing that. I wish that magically we could just take the xrays we need. Shoot dang.
This patient has all of her wisdom teeth and she has a lot of calculus. I cleaned both upper quads today and she had some pretty funky anatomy that kept throwing me off. It was so frustrating because I could feel these spots, but I felt like my instruments just kept "slipping" around them instead of even making a dent in them. I didn't know if it was because my instruments just weren't sharp, or if I wasn't putting enough lateral pressure, or what was going on.But it was a little bit of a frustrating experience. But I was able to pass off subgingival irrigation and I think it was really beneficial for this patient. I like when I have requirements that are not only beneficial for me to get done for requirements, but when the patient will also really benefit from them.
It has been a long day, and this week is going to be really long because I have clinic and TA tuesday, VA wednesday, clinic thursday, and sealant clinic/screenings on friday, then drive to Provo for a birthday party...phew it makes me tired just thinking about it. I just need to remember to take things one day at a time and somehow I always make it through just fine.
Ta ta for now friends.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Final Mockboard!!!!
Alleluia!!! Final mockboard is finished! I never have to find another mockboard patient again! We were talking today about how bittersweet it is to be having all of these "last" things happen this semester. I am really going to miss this program and all of the girls and the instructors/professors. I can't think about this yet because it could put me in a depressing mood.
Something that doesn't put me in a depressing mood is thinking about clinic lunch time in the wet lab. It honestly doesn't get better. I love the chatting and the laughing and everything that goes on in the wet lab at lunch. If you read Marianne's post from today you will see why these days are so funny and entertaining. Love lunch in the wet lab.
Mockboards went pretty smoothly today. It seems like I have to learn some lessons the hard way though sometimes. My patient said she wanted to try without getting numb and so I acquiesced and said that we could try and start out with no numbing but if she needed it then we could definitely use it towards the end. Well she was getting really tender towards the end, especially on her anteriors because there was some recession. I could feel there were still a couple of spots, but she was so jumpy that I just stopped scaling those areas. From now on (so for boards) my patient is going to be numb! Lesson learned. I also scaled the quad I have the most trouble with, the lower right. The lower right quad is the bane of my dental hygiene existence! So I sacrificed today by doing the lower right so that I can do the lower left for real boards. I just feel like I can't get enough leverage to really get in and scrape the calculus off. I wish I could do it with my left hand from the other side. It would be like having 2 lower left quads, and I would rejoice over that. But I am really blessed because my patient is so nice and getting her teeth cleaned are important to her so I don't have to beg her to come and have a huge service done.
I feel like it has been forever since I blogged, but then I realized that it has been a long time since I was in clinic. The whole month of february I will not have a full clinic day. 2 of the days I was gone and the other 2 days were mockboards. It is a good thing that we were able to see a patient on our half day after LA or else I would not have seen a regular patient the whole month of February in the Weber clinic.
My time at Weber State is drawing to a close in just a few short months and it is a little sad to me. I have loved being in school and in a learning environment. I can't think to deeply about that right now so I better go. Until my next post. Peace out Peeps.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
LA Mockboard/tired afternoon
Today was our LA mockboard and I had signed up to be first because there was only that spot or the last spot left. But as luck would have it, I woke up late, was almost late to clinic, and was sweating from getting everything ready when the examiners came over to watch me give the injection. I wasn't really that nervous because my awesome peer pal (shout out to Cesia!!) had come all the way from SLC on a day when she didn't even have to be at school. What a champ. I did the PSA first and it went without a hitch, and then I did the IA. It was so beautiful! It went right in without hitting osseous, and then I aspirated and....POSITIVE ASPIRATION! I haven't had a positive aspiration yet and it kinda caught me by surprise what I did next. I remembered hearing that if you have a positive aspiration that you can move the needle and aspirate again and continue with the injection, but only if you can tell if your second spot gets another positive aspiration. I couldn't tell on the next aspiration if it was positive or not and I SHOULD have just gotten a new set up.
Lesson learned: always get a new set up if you have any sort of positive aspiration.
My only complaint about the morning is that there were quite a few aspects of LA that I didn't know were wrong to do. I wish that in clinic that the instructors would always say something if what we are doing is not correct for the WREB. For example, I always look at my window and then turn it to the correct place when I pick it up, but that is a fail if you touch the syringe without the top on. That would have been nice to know about 4 months ago when we were learning. Another thing that would have been nice to know was that I have always thrown my needle away the wrong way. In lab they told us we could hold on to the tips of the card when we threw it away, so that it the way I have always done it. And I guess that would have been another fail.
All sorts of failures that day.
On to the afternoon. I was pretty worn out after the morning, not that it was physically exhausting, but it was emotionally draining and then I had to sit for about 4 hours after my injections and wait until the afternoon. My vote is that he mockboards are in the afternoon from now on.
My was finishing a patient who was a class III/Class IV. I really wasn't in the mood for that deep of cleaning, I should have scheduled a 1B for the afternoon or something like that so it wouldn't have been so physically exhausting. My one happy thought for the afternoon was that I had sharpened my instruments last time so they were nice and sharp!
I gave my sweet little patient anesthesia and I wish the mockboard would have gone as good. Those dang positive aspirations. This patient was really tough last time and I was exhausted. And to add on to that, I had offered this patient to participate in the laser study. I was so tired by the end of the day and the laser added on another 20 minutes. Plus I was HUNGRY!!!! I guess I could say it was just one of those days that I wasn't totally invested in being in the clinic. These are rare because I love the clinical aspect of school and I love working with patients. It was just a tiring day. Now I have a break for 2 weeks before a real clinic day again. My next clinic day is my last mockboard!!!! I should probably sharpen my instruments again!
Lesson learned: always get a new set up if you have any sort of positive aspiration.
My only complaint about the morning is that there were quite a few aspects of LA that I didn't know were wrong to do. I wish that in clinic that the instructors would always say something if what we are doing is not correct for the WREB. For example, I always look at my window and then turn it to the correct place when I pick it up, but that is a fail if you touch the syringe without the top on. That would have been nice to know about 4 months ago when we were learning. Another thing that would have been nice to know was that I have always thrown my needle away the wrong way. In lab they told us we could hold on to the tips of the card when we threw it away, so that it the way I have always done it. And I guess that would have been another fail.
All sorts of failures that day.
On to the afternoon. I was pretty worn out after the morning, not that it was physically exhausting, but it was emotionally draining and then I had to sit for about 4 hours after my injections and wait until the afternoon. My vote is that he mockboards are in the afternoon from now on.
My was finishing a patient who was a class III/Class IV. I really wasn't in the mood for that deep of cleaning, I should have scheduled a 1B for the afternoon or something like that so it wouldn't have been so physically exhausting. My one happy thought for the afternoon was that I had sharpened my instruments last time so they were nice and sharp!
I gave my sweet little patient anesthesia and I wish the mockboard would have gone as good. Those dang positive aspirations. This patient was really tough last time and I was exhausted. And to add on to that, I had offered this patient to participate in the laser study. I was so tired by the end of the day and the laser added on another 20 minutes. Plus I was HUNGRY!!!! I guess I could say it was just one of those days that I wasn't totally invested in being in the clinic. These are rare because I love the clinical aspect of school and I love working with patients. It was just a tiring day. Now I have a break for 2 weeks before a real clinic day again. My next clinic day is my last mockboard!!!! I should probably sharpen my instruments again!
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