First Patient!!

From start to finish I had my very first patient. Daniel came in to be my 'victim' and I was really grateful. The night before, he told me that he had been tested and had higher than normal blood pressure. Because of that, I ended up staying up all night thinking about it. I didn't sleep so we got up super early, ate and were at the clinic by 7:40am. I wanted to be sure to be ready. By 8:00am we started and my temperature had risen. I was moving as fast as I could and thinking of everything to keep myself in the green. I didn't want to mess up anything. My OD check went so well!! I was really impressed by that and the x-rays came out pretty much awesome. We finished OHI (I need to work on presentation of results to patients) and then barely started scaling (like one surface of one tooth) and the TA said we needed to finish up and walk our patient out. I was the first one done and out of there and I was excited to see how well everything flowed. Prof. Hemsley seemed pretty impressed with my performance too.. that made me feel like a million bucks! I just can't believe that we will be able to do so much in much less time!

Passing off PEs

Emergency preparedness is always so exciting to me. I love to learn about what it is that I should do when someone is in trouble. I don't think i have ever been in an actual situation and I would hope that my basic training would be sufficient to help. I was the patient for 2 people so they could do sealents.. i don't think i am a huge fan of sealents but i would still Rx them to kids. they just feel so funny to my tongue. I also got to pass off 2 pe's. first was Air/powder polishing. I really like it and I felt really good when my patient said that i didn't hurt her.. I also did sharpening, but my instruments are pretty sharp already and I didn't see a huge difference.. oh well..

what a day..

I thought I was doing so good.. I was here in clinic early and was ready and set up everything i could possibly think of.. I went to get my patient and while she was swishing my professor came to humiliate me in front of everyone saying that it was already 13min after and i still didn't have a patient in the chair.. i tried to seem calm but as soon as she turned the hot tears came.. my patient was understanding and so were the rest of the girls.. good thing. After I gained my composure the rest of the appt went wonderfully... I was able to determine her OD correctly and then I scaled all 4 quad with no mistakes.. good thing I had such a great patient.. I really love this work and I want to do a good job... that is probably why i get so sensitive about little things.. I still don't feel like I can completely see every angle of each tooth so i'll work on chair and patient possitions..

PSR and More!!

This time I got to have my pt for the ENTIRE session.. I think it runs a WHOLE lot better when you have the time to go through everything.. I am grateful that my patient was calm and complient.. sure makes the day that much better.. I really felt good about today. We learned about PSR so I did that.. seems I still am a little heavy sometimes on the probe, I scaled a few teeth just to get a good practice and we found some sheet calculus or decalcification.. I couldn't tell and Prof. Costley came and checked.. I practiced the polisher because I want to be more controlled and then we did a sealant.. i really like them.. I love doing the articulating tape and scraping the excess off.. I still don't know the name of the instrument.. it's like cliedodisco.. or something.. I also did 2 fluoride treatments and did my walk out.. what a good day..

ultra sonic

I didn't think it was possible, but we used the ultra sonic scaler on a typodont! It was pretty awesome. It was fun to see how the lighter you were the more "calculus'' came off.. If I saw some and pushed harder.. it took longer to get it off.. crazy..I also was really excited to sharpen instruments. I remember when Gail taught me and we spent most of the day in the back sharpening and talking about hygiene school. i am so grateful to be here and am excited to keep learning more. My mom saw my anatomy skull at my place this weekend and I think she really would have been a wonderful hygienist.. i wish she would go back to school..