11/30/09

Today was a good review day. It is nice to refresh our minds every once in awhile. The test on the manuel was nice, because those will be problems we face next semester in clinic. It was a very good refresher. We learned what to do if an emergency were to happen. We learned how to record PSR in our patient records. Then we learned skill we will need when we are a CA. I'm sure that I will still have many questions next semester. I'm suprised at how much we have accomplished this semester. It went by pretty smoothly and I'm hoping next semester will be the same. I'm worried most about finding patients. So this December I will be looking for patients and try to get as many as I can so next semester will be less stressful!

11/23/09

Wow! today we finally got to work on our real first patient. It was a good experience for me and luckily I had a patient (my sister) that would let me know if I was hurting her. I thought the hardest thing today was probing. For some reason probing takes me such a long time and I'm always so scared I'm hurting my patient. It was really fun to scale and actually see and feel some calculus. When we were practicing on each other we all had really clean mouths so it was harder to see. My goal this week is to work on probing my typodont and see if I can use indirect vision and get a little quicker at that. Overall, today went great! I finished one quadrant of her mouth so she will have to come back for some more fun!

11/18/09

Today was a very nice relaxed day! I got to be the patient today. As I said before it is nice to see it from the patient view and find things that you liked and things you would change. I fill like the dental hygienist are becoming a lot more confident in their work. In turn the patient has more trust in them. I think these mock days have made us prepared for our real patient day. I'm still worried, but feel so much more prepared! Now I'm just worrying about next semester and finding patients every week. I'm amazed at how much I have learned this semester and see how much we have progressed from day 1. My goal is to be prepared with my real patient and know the exact routine and be confident in what I'm doing.

11/16/09

Today was another mock patient day. I felt alot more prepared today and thought it flowed by smoothly. It is always nice to have the cheat sheet to see if you are doing the routine correct. We mainly scaled the opposite side and passed off sealants. I found that it is easier to do sealants on the maxillary teeth because there are no saliva glands getting the teeth all wet. I did not know when placing a sealant you dont have to use much sealant. Today, I got to do my second sealant and it was very nice to feel the difference when using the explorer. I was a little slow on my time when scaling. My goal is to become more time efficient when scaling and using the ultrasonic. Mock patients have helped me feel more prepared for our real patient on Monday. I'm excited to see how it goes!

11/11/09

Today was a nice and relaxed day. I was the patient today and got to lay down all day! It was nice to see it from the patient view. I picked up some things that I would like as a patient. I also learned some new ideas to make it easier for probing the very back teeth. I have always had a hard time with this. The patient just needs to relax their jaw and close their mouth a bit more. That way it will be more accessible for probing and scaling. Also, when probing the back tooth you should increase the angle significantly so that you are not poking the mandibular and maxillary tuberosity. I can't wait until I can probe as fast as the instructors. My goal is to practice probing and do it in an efficient time. That is the main thing that took up most of my time on mock day. I also need to study doing sealants because we will be passing that off next time.

11/09/09

Today was kind of crazy, but I think it was a very good experience for us. We had our mock patients today and had to start from HHx clear down to Status RX. The only things we skipped were two quads, selective polishing, and flouride. So mainly got paperwork done. The hardest and most time consuming thing for me was probing. We had to do the full mouth. I'm sure it is just practice I need and maybe some loupes. The ultrasonic was hard to move from tooth to tooth. I had to keep stopping after each tooth. I guess thats how you learn though. We passed off walking out a patient. That was pretty easy. Overall, it was a good experience and will be very helpful for our real patient day. I'm excited that I get a break and get to be the patient on Wednesday!

10/4/09

Today we mainly passed off air water polishing and flouride. The air water polishing definitly is not the best tasting thing. I prefer polishing over air water. It was nice to practice. I was looking over it yesterday and I learned some new stuff. I learned that the air water polishing works great on tobacco stains and chlorahexadine stains, so I will have to keep that in mind. We learned the correct angles and techniques for sharpening our instruments. We got to use a damaged instrument so it was not as scary. I will be very scared when it come to doing my own and making sure I'm maintaining the shape of my instrument. We learned that automatic sharpeners work great, but you just go through instruments so fast. I'm getting scared for our mock boards. My goal for this week is to study the routine and make sure I have my treatment plan down in the right order.

11/2/09

Today was kind of a fun day! We got to do sealants on each other. I have never done one so it was very new to me. Mine worked out good but was a little high so I had to file it down. I can't wait till I have the routine down and know exactly what I'm doing. On some things I have felt confused on what to do next. So i think by reviewing my manuel like Professor Costley suggested will be very helpful. I cant believe that we are going to have our real patient in two weeks. I do not feel ready! I think that the mock days will be very helpful. My goal for this week is to review the clinic manuel and to pass of air polishing next time. I get to come observe a second year this Thursday. That will also be very helpful to see how the routine is suppose to go.