Class IV

Yea!! I finally have a class 4 pt, one of the things I was worried about. Oddly enough, it ended up being by class 4 from last semester. I was suprised she was a 4 again but Perry told me that once a class 4 it is pretty much inevitable that they will lose their teeth and their prognosis is not a hopeful one. I feel really bad for my patient because she doesn't have the money to see a specialist and she is so absolutely sweet. It breaks my heart that her condition can't be fixed. My afternoon patient no showed, even though she told me yesterday she is coming. I am not going to reschedule her. I called another pt and he said he will be here in 30 min. we'll see......

MOCK BOARD!!

Yesterday we had our mock boards, I was stressed, my patient was late......But she did show up which I was grateful for. I think I was stressed mostly because I think about it like a board and what we are going to have to do and if I am going to be able to do all the paperwork right, on and on. I am kind of shocked that I don't remember anything from last mock board! I think it's so great that we have a few because the first one was pretty much a blur.

Mine didn't go as well as I had hoped. On a positive note though, it was a great learning experience and every time I learn something it's one thing that I know I won't do wrong on game day :) I had calculus clicks and that is something I will just have to work on, I used my pt's x-ray's from the dentist. They sucked! In fact, Perry made me laugh. I went to hand him my x-rays for a 2nd time at pt check out and he looked at me and said those were so crappy the first time I don't want to look at them again! I can only laugh because I didn't take them. I'm sure I would have crawled into a hole had they been mine. The point about the x-rays is - take your own. Do everything you can that you can make sure are "board ready". X-rays are one of those things. I took it for granted because they were coming from a former Weber student and she was sending the pt for boards they would be good x-rays. Good learning lesson!

Kami taught me a few great lesson on maxillary anteriors the day before at the VA, that if I hadn't have learned I would have missed 2 more spots. "Stack" your middle, ring, and pinky finger -make them work as one unit. Get up on your fulcrum (so your hand is more parallel to the teeth) and use the very tip of (H5/6) to go around the mesial edge (subging) turn your instrument in towards the tooth as your coming down (torque). This may not make any sense until you actually see it done. I popped off 2 big chunks of calc this way :)

My lesson from Perry is on paperwork - make sure on mock board day your candidate sticker is on the pt's right side once you put their bib on. So sticker closest to you when they are laying down in the chair. On the perio statement - throw everything we learn in clinic out the window. Boards are different. If there is no recession anywhere, use the x-ray column as your guide to perio condition of pt. If there is recession add the largest recession/pocket combo and use that number in the column of CAL to determine severity (ignore all other columns). Luckily I didn't miss it but it did help make sense of that area. He also mentioned that 99% of board pt's are moderate, so when in doubt,..choose moderate!

Recession - if there is no recession and you mark a 1 it will be an error, however if there is recession and you mark 0, as long as your w/in 1 mm, it won't be counted against you!!

Hopefully next mock will be better!!

January 22, 2009

Today started out like last Thursday, all my patients trying to cancel....hmmmm... this seems to be a trend. I am really having a rough time trying to get patients, nothing is coming off our resource list and when it does it's like Lucky Charms (they magically disappear). The weird thing is though, it's not just me it seems like everyone is having the same problem. So, I was able to talk one of my patients into coming, but the other one just pulled a no show. If any first years are reading this, take note.....this program is a team effort. Katie was such a sweetheart and gave up one of her patients that she had scheduled to see at a future date. This was her patient's wife that happened to be at the appt with him. Katie if you are reading this I really can't say thank you enough times. That was so nice!! I hope I can help someone in this way too :)

I took BEAUTIFUL BWX today :) - I'm sure I'll cone cut tomorrow, but I am going to take a minute to relish in the moment.....aaaahhh......okay, I'm done now. (That's just because I remembered I missed 4 spots on a 1B, you know if they would just brush better there wouldn't be those little teeny bits of calculus on the straight lingual......) Jeannie showed me her fav --17/18 everywhere. I must say it does fit much better that any of the instruments I tried.

January 15, 2008

OMG!! I had a bad day before this day even started. Yesterday, not one but both of my patients cancelled! I am worried about this semester just for this reason. I don't feel like we even have a resource list to draw from, and by the emails I'm seeing I am wondering what is happening with the patients. It seems like everyone's patient is being taken out from under them. How is this happening? I gave my peer pal a patient that I didn't need and before she could call and schedule him, another student had already done so. I don't know how a patient that was given to me could have also been given to someone else unless I gave it to them, la la la...if that even makes any sense! ANYWAY..... I got a referral from my patient that cancelled and ended up working all morning on that patient and brought the same one back that afternoon and finished her so it all worked out thank goodness!!

Back again!! My first clinic day of the last semester :) (It doesn't feel as good as it sounds though). My morning patient was a 1B w/sealants. I feel a little rusty and my neck is sore so I need to focus on having good posture. I am hoping that my afternoon patient shows up and also qualifies for my board pt :) I have high hopes I know. This semester I am going to focus on becoming faster and really being confident in instrumenting. I do feel pretty good about it at this point but there are still a few areas that are always tricky.

Today was a great day. I had a class IV. I finished 3 quads and gave her 8 different injections. I am so glad I finished her. She had a lot of supragingival calculus too. It was so fun that I put down my ultrasonic and just handscaled for fun :) Sick huh?

My "AHA" Moment

Today was the best day!!! My Class 3 came in and I got to do my own injections -MSA, ASA, IA & a mental. It was scary but I'm glad I did it. My pt was a big guy, missing his molars -and had excessive hyperlipidemia of the buccal mucosa and a wide tongue. Everytime I located my landmark and went to put the needle in his cheek would seep back over the landmark and his tongue was covering it from the other side. I looked at Jen with pleading eyes and I was ready to give up but she wouldn't offer to take over. When I was finished I went into the instructor's pod and I said "couldn't you tell I was about to give up?" and Jen said "Yes, couldn't you tell that I wasn't going to let you.." (Her sense of humor kills me!) I scaled 3 quads and only missed one tiny spot!! I felt like for the first time I was looking for specific instruments to use and I actually saw the black calculus coming off with my hand scaling!! Yay!! It's coming... I really might be able to do this someday :)