Home stretch

Yippee!!! Only 4 more clinic days!!! I'm so happy I could cry!! Today I had a class 5 and it was the last one I needed to fulfill my requirements. I have 4 appointments open for my class 3 and then I'm finished! This semester has flown by and I'm still not sure I know what I'm doing. My patient was super nice today which made it a lot easier. I was able to pass off 2 PE's also. I feel like I'm getting faster with probing and scaling and it feels great. When I'm scaling I feel like I go through the motions but I don't really know what I'm doing but then I have my scale checks and I only miss a couple spots. So...I guess I must be doing something right! I just need to be more confident.

Hairy tongue

Today I had the lovely experience of seeing black hairy and coated tongue! It was disgusting!!!! Poor Instructor Kim almost puked when she did my OD. It was not a pretty sight. It was good for my patient to see and hopefully give her more of a reason to stop smoking. She was a class 2 and I was able to finish her. I was pretty proud of myself. I missed a few spots and they were hard for me to get. I don't know if I wasn't instrumenting right or what but Kim had to help me get a couple of them. I am feeling a little more relaxed now that I think I will be able to get all of my qualifications in. I just need to schedule one more class 2 and then do a FMX on my sister or husband. I can't believe there's only 5 clinic days left! Wahoo!!!!

Melt down...

Well today was interesting. My class 2 patient cancelled that I was planning on finishing. I was going to do 3 or 4 PE's on her too so that messed up my schedule. I came to school early to call a patient and actually got one scheduled that I got off the resource list a couple days ago. Mr. Solomon said she was 3 quads of a class 4 and 1 quad of a class 3. I took her name in hopes that she was just a class 3 all over. I was only able to finish the OD today. She definately has perio!! Probing took me forever because she had such deep pockets. Midtown actually took x rays last week and she has lots of bone loss and I thought maybe even a furcation or 2. She has mobility on 4 teeth. The crazy thing is that she doesn't have any restorations and only 3 suspicious areas! After I had an OD check, I started crying!! I don't know why I broke down or what happened. I guess I was just sad for this patient. She is only 26 years old and is in this bad of a condition. She's never had a cleaning and basically doesn't know how to take care of her mouth. I guess I'm just stressed and it all needed to come out and this was the time to do it! I hope with the OHI I did and after this cleaning and more OHI, she will be able to be motivated and keep her mouth clean and maintain her perio. It was just so sad to see her mouth in this condition. And maybe I'm just a baby!!!

Family

Monday I scheduled a family of 5 to come in. I was seeing a 12 yr old boy. The mom really wanted them to see second year students because 'they are usually faster'. And she wanted to be sure all of them were finished in one day, x rays taken, and all sealants placed that they needed. She was kind of making all of us nervous and scared of what she would do if we didn't finish all of them. Everything went really well though. We all finished each of them and I was able to do sealants on my patient and am done with those requirements. He actually needed 5 sealants so Kristen did a couple for me so she could get credit. It was a relaxing day and everything went well.

Spring Break!

I am so excited for a whole week with no school!! Of course that doesn't mean no studying :( Wednesday I had a 1A patient and I knew that would be fast so I scheduled my 2 younger sisters to come in for panos since they should get their wisdom teeth out. I learned that I should never think everything will go smoothly because....it won't! I did the 1A patient fine, no problems. I didn't realize that there was more to do for a pano than I thought. HHX, HHxRx, etc etc.... It took me longer than I hoped it would and the pano itself to 15-20, to be exact! Oh well I guess I got my pano requirements out of the way. Now I just need to kick my feet up and relax for a minute because I have been stressed out!! Happy Spring Break everybody!

No show :(

Today I had my first Spanish speaking patient scheduled to come in today. I had Karina schedule him for me. Around 8:10 when he hadn't shown up yet, I had Karina call him. He said he couldn't come in anymore and didn't know who to call. That's kind of funny since Karina gave him her number, my number, and the clinic number. Luckily I warned my mom that she was my back up patient and she was so good to come in spur of the moment. Of course she was only a 1B but I am grateful that I had a patient! I was able to finish her so it went well. I wish I would have passed off some PE's today though!! I still have 10 to pass off and I'm getting a little worried. I'm hoping to do a few Wednesday with the TA's.

Tenacious

Today I had a patient that was referred to us by her dentist. When I sheduled her appt she said she didn't remember the last time she had a cleaning. I was hoping she would be my class 3 patient. Turns out she was just a class 2 but that's A-okay since I need 6 more quads. Prior to today she let me know she's really sensitive and needs anesthesia. I was hoping to get at least 2 quads done....but of course when I make goals they don't seem to work out like planned. I was only able to finish one quad. There was a good amount of calculus on the mandibular anteriors and her teeth were malpositioned so it made it more difficult to get off. I missed 2 areas that I struggled with a lot. Prof. Costley ended up getting them off for me. I was a little frustrated with today because I just felt like I didn't do very well and I should have accomplished more. I guess there's not much I can do about now. I was able to pass off my explorer PE and detect calculus with it and that felt good. Sometimes it's hard to find calculus or feel what the instructors feel but I definately found it today!

Waiting.....

Today was supposed to be an easy and fast day. I had 2 patients scheduled. My first pt was someone that I saw last Monday and I only had 2 quads left. Since she should have taken me maybe 45 minutes I scheduled my grandma to come in so I could do the denture PE and glucose PE. Well.....since our favorite thing to do is wait, and wait, and wait....that's what I did a lot of! My first patient got out 30 minutes past my estimated time which meant my grandma was waiting for over a half hour. My grandma shouldn't have taken very long since she's fully edentulous but of course it never happens like we plan it to. I ended up spending an hour and a half on her!! I was frustrated today for sure. My instructor was busy so I was waiting around and when I saw another instructor was busy I asked them if they could pass off my blood glucose PE since my instructor was taking a while. This other instructor kind of acted bugged by me asking but ended up doing it anyway. I just get so frustrated with waiting forever and WAY too long for instructors to check. Patients could be out so much faster if we had more instructors to go around. I know this is a common complaint in clinic but I think something needs to be changed to help things flow better. Just a thought!