Another day...

My dad was my patient! That was fun to have him come in and see me. He's so excited for me to be in this program! I feel like I leave my patient sitting by themselves a lot. I had to wait for a second year (that wasn't scheduled on the computer) to take x-rays on her board patient, and then clean her room and set up mine and then go get my dad to take four bitewings and a pano. I felt bad cause he sat in the chair for like twenty minutes just wasting his time. But he is so sweet, he said it didn't bother him a bit. I used the ultra sonic scaler on him too and I didn't like it so I think that no one else is going to tolerate it either, but he said that didn't bother him at all either! He was a great patient. I only got one quadrant done but he will be back to get finished up! I hope next time I can spend more time with him and not leave him sitting alone forever.

STRESSFUL day

So an hour and a half before clinic, I called my patient to make sure she had directions to the clinic. I had recived her name and number from the list in the front office. When I called she said, oh yea I'm not coming, I'm glad you called. WHAT? So I had a frantic search for another patient and luckily I found a nice man named Roberto. He didn't speak english but the appointment went well for having him come about 25 minutes late and being a class 5 the appointment went ok. He still needs to come back to finish up 3 quads. I'm really hoping I get faster really soon. I want to finish patients in one appointment NOW. I'll keep workin' on it though!

Wow... Hygiene is stressful!!!

Today I had a hygienist I work with come in and see me! She's awesome! I did 4 scan-x BWX on her and finished two quads. My goal was to get finished today but that didn't happen. I'm still having a hard time detecting calculus. After Pro. Costely showed me where it was and how to get it off, things clicked for me. I hope I can remember how to do it on my next patient! It's really fun and rewarding when I actually see stuff coming off! My goal is to be more careful in detecting where the calculus is and then working hard to get it off!
I also need to speed up the probing and whole OD. I think this is where I get behind. I'm not the world's fastest "probe-r" but I'm really working on making sure I'm getting the right angles and feel for it. I guess practice makes perfect, I just wish I had a little more patience.

First child patient!

I had my first 1A patient and his oral hygiene is not very good. I learned a lot in that one appointment. I learned a certain instrument that is probably not good to use on a child. I also learned that when a child has heavy plaque, it might be easier to polish first, after you show them their disclosed mouth and teach them OHI. I scaled all of his plaque off which was good instrumentation practice, but I wasted a lot of time being very picky when I could have removed a lot of it with selective polishing. I know next time that to make it easier on myself, get the loose stuff off first and then get the harder stuff off; it should go a lot faster that way. It was a really good experience for me! I'm glad my patient was cooperative because it took a long time! But I've learned new tricks!!

I'M BACK!

Well... I'm back. Today we learned more about ultrasonic scaling and using area specific curets also known as gracies. I like the gracies, they help me with angles and therefore getting more calculus off! I needed more practice with the ultrasonic too. I think both the gracies and ultrasonic are going to help me a lot!