The day from H. E. DOUBLE

Yep that's right.. today was Mockboard day... and after this we shall no longer speak of this day.  Pretty much I sucked it up big time.. my patient had much more tenacious calculus than anticipated and I don't know how to use my files.. (which apparently I should have had out). I knew I missed at least one spot, but six spots AND a serious area of tissue trauma?!  I literally sliced her poor papilla in half! How did I even do that?! How did I not notice it?! How am I ever going to pass real boards?! 

Extremely... friendly... patients

Tuesday I brought back one of my patients that I saw last semester.  He is one of my favorite patients!  He is very strange and always comes in sweats and looks like he just rolled out of bed.  But he is so nice and friendly.  Last semester when I saw him he was a class II and now with good homecare he is a class V.  It is nice to see patient compliance (although I was secretly hoping he would qualify for mockboards).  After I walked him up to the front to check out my patient had me hold out my hand and close my eyes and he put two pieces of choclate in it (which he does everytime!).  The chocolate was melted from being in his pocket the whole appointment, but it was such a nice gesture! 

My afternoon patients was one that had been given to me from my peer pal he was a class II but didn't qualify for mockboards because of missing teeth and interproximal fillings.  My patient was 31 and friendly, but seemed a little nervous.  Which I really noticed after Marilyn pointed out that his back was sweating profusely.  I did everything I could to make sure that he felt comfortable and that he wouldn't be nervous.  I guess it worked because as I was scaling he fell asleep in my chair.. haha!  The next day I figured out why he had been a little nervous... He text me and said "Thank you again for yesterday.  I hope you have a beautiful week.  I hope that isn't too much to say, sorry if it is."  I didn't know what to say back so I just said thanks again for coming in last minute.  Haha.. very friendly patient..

Side Note: Kristen found me a mockboard patient!! I am so so so so happy! I have been a tad bit stressed about that whole situation.

Always nice to have a friendly face in your chair!

Today I had my friend Heidi come in for a cleaning.  She has been saying she needed one forever so I finally told her to just come in!  She got my hopes up telling me that she had horrible teeth and that her hygienist told her that she has deep pockets and stuff.  Well, she wasn't due for xrays but from looking at probe depths, BFI, and calculus, she was just a boring 1B. But finally i finished a patient OD and scaling in one appointment! (whoop whoop!)

This afternoon my patient cancelled and I was trying to find someone to fill the spot, when luckily Erin happened to have an extra patient! She was so nice to let me see the little boy of the mother that she was working on.  He was an easy 1A and didn't take too long to finish.  Then there were a bunch of children in the clinic that needed sealants, so I volunteered to do a couple so that I could pass off a pe!  All in all pretty  productive day!

Birthday in clinic

Today I turned 23! Happy Birthday to me! 

Yay, finally I feel like I am not completely worthless in clinic!  Today I was able to bring in a class IV that I saw at Midtown.  He agreed to come up to the school to finish the last 3 quads of cleaning!  Yay! That means it will count towards requirements! (PS... Freaking out that there is no possible way I will meet them this semester).  I still missed five spots on him, but considering he was such a hard patient, I was ok with it!  Then this afternoon we had lab.. it was kinda long and boring, but kind of nice and stress free!

Maybe I should rethink my career path.... :-S

Wow, I thought the first week was rough and I told myself this morning that this week couldn't be as bad as that week.. Boy was I so so wrong. Well lets start with my dad.. I finished with him but not before missing a bunch of spots.. Really.. I miss that many spots on a 1B? (LOSER!)  Then I saw a 13 year old boy who I assumed was just another easy 1A.  When Lis did my scale check, I missed 12 spots... no that's not a typo.. 12 spots on a 13 year old. Well Lis gave me the benefit of the doubt and told me that the spots were subgingival and he should really be a class II.  She told me that I can't assume every child will be healthy and that I just didnt' go subgingival enough.  Well it made me feel a little better.. but really I know that I just really sucked it up.. Well I ran over on time with him and my returning class V patient got started late and I only cleaned two quads.. so now I have to bring her back for a third time to finish!

On positive note.. It was really fun to have my Daddy come in and get his teeth cleaned! He was such a good patient! I just love him!

CA

Today I was the CA.  After last week it is kind of nice to not have to stress about patients, but really considering that I did pretty much nothing... I feel so behind.. It was fun to be CA with Michelle though!

First day of SENIOR clinic!

Who better to have as your first patient back than your dad? That's right my sweet daddy came into the clinic to be my patient today.  Things started out a little rough.. First the computers weren't working for me in xrays so I took a conventional pano on my dad.. something must have been wrong with the sleeve because I had two radiopaque lines go right through it and ruin the image.. so I got to take it again!  The second time it worked, but there still were some lighter lines towards the bottom of the image.. but at least you could see the image. So after my struggles with radiology I barely had time to finish and OD and I will have to bring my  Dad (a freaking 1B) back to scale!!  Things didn't get much better for me in the afternoon.  My patient was someone that I screened at Midtown over the summer at the Women's Health Connection.  She ended up being a class V, but she told me that after xrays she didn't want to get a cleaning because she didn't have the money to pay for it all.  So she left early with only an OD.  I feel so frustrated.. I didn't get ANYTHING done!!  I hope this is not a sign of what's to come for the semester.