Last day at the VA!

I bet that is a popular dental hygiene post title because it is so exciting. I guess its not truly my last day, but it is my last day until the end of February so that is pretty exciting. I have really actually enjoyed my time here at the VA. In fact, I definitely prefer this environment to WSU clinic just because you don't have to do forever-long ODs. But it makes for a super long week when you have class Monday, VA Tuesday, TA Wednesday and Clinic Thursday. It is really nice to be completely done with that busy, busy schedule. Today my patients weren't too exciting. I saw a 1B in the morning and a Class 5 in the afternoon. My class 5 patient admitted to not really doing any OH ever until yesterday. That's right, he started brushing his teeth yesterday, folks! As I hygienist I just think, how could this happen? And now I hope he is motivated enough to keep it up so he can keep what teeth he has left.

TA the day before Thanksgiving

Message to Prof. Costley: Do not forget that you need to change the schedule next year to cancel clinic on the day before Thanksgiving. It is the absolute worst day of the year to be in clinic. And another thing, with the students working on each other it was really hard to stay occupied as a TA. If you really wanted to be nice you could give the TA's this day off to work on their papers. :)

Okay so moving on... in clinic it was the student treatment day so I mostly sat around with loads of time on my hands. It was really boring to say the least. I thought everyone did a really great and thorough job on their student treatments. One thing everyone seemed to forget was filling out the patient encounter forms but that will probably get easier, especially when you are seeing real patients. Otherwise, good luck to everyone on their first day of real patient treatment. I am so excited to be able to see ya all in action actually applying everything you've worked your bums off to learn this semster.

3rd to last day of clinic

Today I am on the verge of completing my 3rd to last day of clinic and it feels great. I am going to be totally honest when I say that I really don't enjoy cleaning teeth. I enjoy the end product and sense of fulfillment in having cleaned a patient with perio or bad ginigivitis. I enjoy interacting with the patients and getting to know them. I also enjoy feeling like I am helping each patient and doing something good for someone else. But I really don't like cleaning teeth. I guess the other parts of the job are just more rewarding so it all equals out in the end but day after day I dread seeing another tooth covered in plaque and calculus. On the bright side, the aches and pains in my back seem to be getting less severe as I am getting used to it.

Radiology TA, again

Yesterday was my last experience as radiology TA, thank heavens! Nothing against the teacher or any of the students of course, you are all excellent, it is just a very boring subject to be a TA. However, I was thankful for my experience today as it was very enlightening. We were using the bisecting the angle technique and PANOs. It was a very good review of bisecting because I really didn't feel like I got a really good experience with it last year so I was learning more than I was teaching or assisting! The PANO was also a good review because our learning how to use the PANO machine was very basic last year so it was helpful to watch the video and see all the basics of setting up the Frankfort plane and everything broken down again. Its amazing how much I've learned, but at the same time, as I am reviewing things in first year clinic, I am seeing a lot that I have forgotten. So even though it has been painfully boring at times, overall it has been an invaluable experience.

Thank heaven for the VA!

I got another class 2 at the VA and it is so nice because without the VA there is no way I would have seen anywhere close to twenty quads of a class 2. I also got to take another pano and BWX. I love taking digital xrays and I never want to manually process another film as long as I live. To put it short, I love the VA. Except for the smell, I hate the smell.

Sharpening - TA

Today we did instrument sharpening and I felt really confident in my ability to instruct them on this thankfully! It is funny how last year I really didn't know how to sharpen or feel confident in it at all and then after the clinic we had this year I felt really great about it... plus I got a Gleason Guide which is AWESOME! I also am a big advocate of sharpening because I hate working with instruments that aren't super sharp so I sharpen frequently. You might say I am a sharpening queen. Totally kidding!

CLiNic DaY... A day of stain

Today was a very productive day and I feel really good about it. I got a class V in the a.m and two 1A this afternoon. Wahoo! I am closing the gap on these "requirements" quickly... they don't stand a chance. ;) (I know I am a dork). So anyway, my morning patient was a pretty standard class V perio maintenance patient and he was doing a pretty good job maintaining his perio as far as I could see. Looking back at some of his old charts, his probe depths had improved significantly and he was generally healthy. The biggest project I had on him was the heavy stain from drinking black tea & smoking a water pipe. He was from India and explained to me how it was a very big social custom... fascinating... but still not good for your health!

THEN, this afternoon the first 1A patient I saw was an 11-year old with black line stain on the lingual and facial surfaces of her lower anteriors. Crazy, huh? It was hard work hand scaling all that. Luckily, her younger sister didn't have any stain so it was a little easier. Only 4 weeks left!!