Lightbulb!

I know this may sound dumb, but here we are towards the end of Fall semester of 2nd year and something has finally clicked. Today I think I figured out the "towards to toe" part of scaling. I had some terrible habits that Dr. Hanson was bound and determined to fix today in clinic, and I am proud to say that we got a good start on that task. Once my lateral pressure was applied I was scaling in more of a rocking motion towards the tooth and not towards the tip of the instrument. It was exciting to finally understand what I had been doing so wrong when I scale the mandibular anteriors. I found that I literally had to slowly say these steps out loud to get it down, but hey it worked...

1. Up high on fulcrum with the toe being the first thing sub-g.
2. Apply the lateral pressure towards the tooth.
3. Scaling strokes up toward the toe!
4. Now listen to that beautiful scratching sound that is removing subgingival calculus.

My patient may think I am a weirdo if I continue to say these steps out loud so for now, until I can re-train my hands, I will be saying these steps in my head constantly. It was a good day and I ended up getting 2 quads of a class III, which we all know is precious as gold at this point in time.

Another day in the life

Clinic went well today. I had a class V this morning which was easy and then I had one quad to finish on my mockboard patient this afternoon and that finishes up my class II/V requirement. I feel like I am getting more and more comfortable with the ultrasonic and I have been getting a lot of great tips on hand scaling, I just need to work on feeling for calculus. Me and Dr. Hanson discovered today that I sometimes stay too adapted to the tooth which makes it easier to breeze right over calculus without feeling the click. I am just gonna purge some of the things in my brain from clinic today.....It helps a lot to be behind the patient , like at 12:00 or 1:00 when working on the right mandibular linguals. More pressure towards the tooth! Oblique strokes on straight linguals/buccals. Toe down. Even when I think I am sub enough, go even more sub. Well...

Long weekend?? Don't mind if I do!!

Oh Mockboards...

What a week. I am so relieved its over, yet I wish so badly I could do it over again! I was really nervous for mockboards and I had nightmares all night about it. It did not end up being quite the nightmare I imagined, however I missed some calculus and was kinda bummed about that. My patient was a legit board patient with very tenacious calculus and I feel like I learned a lot from the whole experience. The distal of the #2 seems to get me every time and Perry showed me how to get it off using the SH67. It was great to have the practice with a real board patient and with all of the paperwork and order of things, which was not as bad as we all thought it would be. As far as calculus errors, next time will be better! This week we also had a local anesthesia lab where we practiced all 7 injections on each other, and I think it is fair to say that I am over my fear of shots now. Now we can give injections to our patients, yay! The one thing holding me back....finding a dang class III to anesthetize!

Cruisin!

I feel as though these weeks are going by extremely quickly, especially when we have weeks like this one.

Monday we had a really good CE course about ergonomics, and although it scared me a bit (I had neck and back problems before I even started the program) it was really good information and I was a lot more aware of my posture this week in clinic.

On Tuesday, I participated in the Hooper Health Fair where we did oral cancer screenings. People seemed to avoid our table like the plague...like we were gonna hurt them or something. Oh well, it was fun to be there and get to know a few of the junior students a little better.

Clinic this week went well, I saw a class II in the morning and I am so glad because I really needed the practice in prep for Mockboards next week. Prof. Perry came over to give me some helpful reminders on the mandibular anteriors. Sometimes we just go along and get so stuck in our ways, even though those ways may be wrong, so I appreciate the tweeking of instrumentation, chair positions, etc from time to time. I need to remember the V-of the hand grasp and watch my where my fingers are on the instrument because they tend to creep up and I lose more power and control that way.

Then Friday we helped with the Children's Health Connection which I loved. It was fun to watch the dentists. Watching the assistants made me realize there is still so much I do not know about dentistry! But it was a great learning experience and I loved being there to help calm the nerves of the little kids and see all that was being done to help them.

Well, told ya it was a long week...therefore a long blog post.