Probing with the first years

I have been dreading teaching probing since I became a TA but honestly, it wasn't bad at all. It is a lot better to teach probing than to actually probe anyway! The thing I really enjoyed about it was going over all the little technicalities because after a year, my grasp and fulcrum and all has gotten sloppy. Also, I passed off the afternoon sessions Explorer and Instrument Grasp PEs and they did awesome. It was also a food review for me because I honestly had forgotten that in the modified pen grasp your fingers are supposed to be in a "c" shape. As little as this seems, now that I am working on that habit I noticed my fingers aren't as sore today! :)

Whadda day!

Today in clinic I saw a class 3 in the am & my first class 4 in the pm. As tiring as it was, I actually really enjoyed the class 4 especially. It was really rewarding to be able to feel definite clicks with the explorer and then actually see the huge chuncks of calculus come out of the pocket after a successful stroke. Today I actually had the thought, "Yeah, I think I can do boards." Whereas, up to this point I've been like "I am never gonna pass boards!" Anyway, I am glad today is over but I felt really good about everything. I am anxiously awaiting my next class 4 patient... but not until next semester hopefully!

36 xrays later...

It's the lastest title of my new horror film. It's about me having to take xrays all day long on both of my patients and it was horrible. But what can you do? I finally get that thing that Prof. Alexander is always saying about how the xrays are like your bright lights when you're driving at night. My patient had some real issues and I really felt like I needed the xrays to see everything that was going on. It was difficult to tell whether his pockets were pseudo pockets or how much bone loss he actually had without seeing the xrays because he had a lot of gingival inflammation. Anyway, I got my xrays done and I hope to see some easy patients here pretty soon. The sad thing is, I've seen a few difficult patients so far, but no patients for mockboards yet.

Just like riding a bicycle

So hygiene is just like riding a bicycle... I was amazed at how it all came back to me on the first day of clinic. I thought I would forget a lot more than I did, however I did forget to probe the entire maxillary lingual quad of my patient. :) But really I think I did pretty dang well. I got a FMX done on a class V patient and I completed all 4 quads on that same patient. My class III was a little harder and I got a late start so I only got one quad done but still I am amazed at my progress from last semester. I'm not really sure what the difference is but I feel a lot more confident this semester than I did last semester too which makes a big difference. Hopefully it stays that way!

Instrument sharpening... I get it!

I am so so soo glad that we had that instrument sharpening review in our first clinic session on Thursday because I felt like I had no idea what I was doing beforehand and now I'm thinking, "Wow! Instrument sharpening really works!" I know its a very important skill to have and I honestly felt helpless last semester when I knew my instruments were dulling and I would make my best attempt at sharpening (which was TOTALLY wrong) but it didn't seem to work very well. :( Maybe it would've been good to actually check out that video last semester when Costley asked us to! Woops!