Have a great summer

Hey everyone, just wanted to say that really has been an awesome year getting to know all of you. I honestly never imagined I would have this much fun. The carpool has been awesome and I am totally looking forward to it next year. Carpool 4 life! Sitting on the back row of class with Aimee, Des and Jalene feels like a second home to me now. I can call same seats next year! So, I'll see you next year, or during summer classes, have a great summer, don't change. Have fun in the sun, get laid in the shade. Call me!

Class 3 done!

Its the last day of clinic and I finally got my class 3 patient finished! I enjoyed this time a lot more because I knew I only had 1 quad to get done and I really focused on my instrumentation. I don't feel like the ultra sonic did anything for me and part of that problem is maybe I wasn't going deep enough with it but its okay because I got to hand-scale some huge black chunks of calculus and that is pretty rewarding for me at this point. I hate class 3's because they are VERY hard work but it was a great experience for me to learn A LOT about calculus, instrumentation and clinician fatigue!

Pretty good day... for learning, not so much for me

My patient today was pretty difficult for 3 reasons: 1)she was a mouth breather so her max anterior tissues were swollen out to Texas and bled like a stuck pig 2)she had a lingual retainer that was covered with calculus and 3) she was EXTREMELY sensitive. I would just like to pat myself on the back and say I did okay. The only thing that is keeping me going at this point is knowing I only have one more day of clinic for the next four months!!

Busy Day!!

Holy cow! I saw two patients today and it was crazy! I had to set up my clinic area 2x plus set up/clean up radiology 2x. I saw my niece, a class 1A and my friend, a class 1B (I think) but I'm not sure because all I did was a FMX and BWX on her. I am now officially done with my PA requirements, my class 1A requirements and I only need 1 more set of BWX! 3 more clinic days left... good luck everyone!

Children's Health Fair

Last week we went to the children's health fair at the university and it was pretty fun. I had never done anything like it before so I just wanted to go and get a feel for it. I enjoyed watching how some of the second year girls interacted with the kids and I got a better idea of what to expect at something like that.

Done with class 2

I finally got my last two quads of class 2 done!!! I will be sure to pass any extra quads I come across on to someone else if I can though. I am very nervous about seeing my class 3 patient again though because the last time I saw her I had one heck of a time scaling her. I kept being told to go more apical but there was so much bleeding and I was just so nervous that I was gonna tear her gums right off. Wish me luck!

Back to school

How was everyone's Spring Break '06? Mine was great... I missed you girls in Vegas but I myself went to Wendover Friday night on the "fun bus" and who doesn't love Wendover? Today in clinic I got another Class 1B done with Bwx and I was happy that the BWX only took me about 5 minutes to actually expose... then there's developing, cleaning, etc. But I feel like I am getting better. I kept on schedule and the only thing I didn't keep my goal time was on scaling which was 30 minutes or less and I think I took about 45.

My first full-mouth

Holy crap! I got my first FMX of the semester done and it was HARD! It took me a whole hour to do the FMX and 4 BWX without any retakes. My patient had a really small mouth so I had to use size 1 films on all of the anteriors but it feels good to have one done. I can't believe I have to do another one of those. At least I have one under my belt so hopefully I will feel more confident with the second one.

Two quads of class 2

Well today I finished two more quads of a class 2 and got done early enough to have started a second patient but I didn't really have a patient that wanted to come in just to get started today. It was a pretty stress-free clinic day and I got three PE's done! I felt confident in my scaling today and I am getting more used to the Ultrasonic but I just don't feel like it gets rid of that much calculus and I am having a little trouble not causing a little bleeding.

Darn physician consults!

Well, today was pretty much a waste of a clinic day because my pt. had to have a physician consult and I couldn't get a hold of anyone so all I could do was the intra and extra oral screening. :( At least I know next time he comes back we are ready to scale. Hopefully Wednesday will be more successful.

Only one more appt. in Feb

We only have one more clinic day in February!! Yay! But also crappy at the same time because I feel so stressed about getting my requirements. Especially for radiology because it seems like most of my patients don't need xrays or some that do refuse to get them... ugggh! Anyway, today I did my class 1B exam and I think I failed it because I missed so many areas. I really feel like I can't do a decent job without taking a lot of time to do it. I tried to follow the instructors' advice and "risk" a few mistakes to speed up but then I just ended up missing what seemed like every single tooth in my patient's mouth. I just want to feel like I know what I am doing and be able to do it in a reasonable amount of time. One good thing is that I did get this patient done in one appointment (without xrays) and he did have a lot of stain from tobacco. So I feel pretty optimistic about that.

The day before Valentine's Day

I couldn't think of a title for this blog so... there you go! Today I saw my first class 2 patient but he was a light class 2 with a bit of recession. The hardest part of scaling today was distinguishing CEJ from calculus deposits. Professor Alexander helped me learn how to distinguish the two by sound because the deposits have a scratchier sound to them whereas CEJ is just more of a definite clicking noise. Everyday I am getting more and more comfortable with things. One thing I am worried about is xrays because I haven't taken any PA's or Panos, and I have only had like 4 BWX patients! I better start getting patients that need xrays. Happy Valentine's Day everybody!

Classifications?

Today I finished scaling my patient and I realized that patient classification often depends on the instructor you have. When I started my patient she was classified as a 1B but I thought her probe depths and tissues were more of a class 2. She just didn't have enough calculus to be a class 2. So the instructor put her as 1B. Then today the instructor I saw wanted to put her as a class 2 but couldn't because she didn't have the chance to see her initially... so she ended up being a class 5, which is probably about right. Either way, I took a whole hour to scale which means I am SLOW!!! My goal is to try and speed up just a bit. Maybe get my class 1B scale time down to 45 minutes.

No Habla Espanol!

On Monday I treated my first spanish speaking patient and today I did my Class 1A exam on a patient with ADHD! Its been a pretty interesting week. Monday I realized that I really should learn to speak Spanish because I am sure that in the future we will be treating an increasing amount of Spanish speaking patients. Luckily, my patient was very nice and understanding and Midtown was nice enough to help me out with translation. Oh and I borrowed Jalene's patient for a minute to help translate too! The good thing is she is supposed to come back at the end of March and she's a class 3. It was pretty fun probing around and feeling tons of calculus. I don't think I was able to get totally accurate probe depths though because it kept getting caught on the calculus. McConaughy suggested that when she come back I clean one area and then reprobe it.
The Class 1A today was pretty simple. I really liked not having to probe. My patient was very shy and didn't say one word to me but other than that, it was okay. I felt kind of rushed knowing that he was ADHD and worrying that he might freak out but he was really still for a 5 yr. old and I was able to get everything done just fine.

No Habla Espanol!

Another Class 1B

I have finished my second class 1B patient for the semester... YEAH!!! I feel pretty good about that. I could definitely feel spots with calculus and I felt like I knew what I was doing for the most part. There was a LOT of bleeding which kind of freaked me out at first because I thought I was tearing my patients gums apart. But when I got my scale check done, McConaughey commented that she noticed that the tissues bled very easily and that she might recommend the patient use Prevident. I'm looking forward to seeing my first Class 1A patient on Wednesday. Everyone says it should be easy but we'll see...

Slow like a turtle

How am I ever going to get done with a patient in one appointment? I don't believe that it is really possible. I saw my mom in clinic on Wednesday and I had already taken x-rays on her in radiology. Given that I had that advantage I thought "No problemo, I will get her finished up, right?" Wrong! I didn't even start scaling. I think I spent the whole time probing. I honestly don't know what else I did. Oh well, I guess I'll finish her next time. Otherwise the semester is just going right along. My goal is to do the explorer PE next clinic. I just feel so intimidated by all this stuff so far like the PE's, the exams, all the requirements. I totally understand why everyone says this is the worst semester!

Like Harrison Ford I'm getting Frantic!

(To quote the Barenaked Ladies)... Anyway, I am good at making bad jokes! So speaking of frantic, today clinic was incredibly stressful for me. What I learned from clinic today is that if you don't start out calm and collected, your day is shot! First of all, I got a little bit of a late start and from then on it was crazy. I was working on a good friend so that helped me to stay a little bit calmer. I think my goal for the remainder of the semester is to be in clinic at least 15-20 min. early to be sure that I will have more than enough time to get set up and collected.

I made it!!

Today was our first day of patient treatment and I made it! I didn't have a nervous breakdown like I anticipated and I got my patient completely done by the end of the day, which he's very happy about! My back is a little sore but I tried really hard to correct my posture everytime I would think about it. Posture really is one of the hardest things to think about when you're probing and scaling. True, it took me almost an hour to scale 4 quads of a class 1B but I did it. So anyway, I am glad we did that today it was definitely a good experience. I feel like I am ready for next semester. Now I just need to find some patients... see ya next semester!

Radiology

I usually don't write about Radiology so I thought I'd just take a moment to say hallelujah- my x-rays are done!! It feels so good to be done not to mention now I don't have to come in next Wednesday. I liked doing the patient treatments a lot because now I am ahead on two patients that I will treat in clinic and it was good experience so I don't forget everything I learned this semester. I really wasn't nervous during my patient treatment but I did make a few mistakes... like forgetting to get the double film packets from Mrs. Campbell and just using our regular films... oops!! Hopefully that won't hurt me too much. Oh well!