January 27, 2010

Finished my brother, David, today. It always feels so good to finish a patient. I did my intra-oral camera PE and took some great pictures of some "suspicious areas". Basically some chipping and decay off of a few fillings. I also "prescribed" some Prevident. I need some myself! I should remember to get some for me! Need some class 2 patients now...

January 25, 2010

Finished my friend, Shar, today. She was an excellent patient. Super healthy, awesome teeth, hardly any calculus. I did my 1B exam on her and it was such a great choice! It feels great to finish a whole patient. I also did my air-powder polish PE on her, poor thing. She was very accomodating and I'm done with it for this year, thank goodness.

January 20, 2010

Note to self: always remember to put a duplicate film in when taking conventional panoramic x-rays! Yikes! Luckily a TA was able to help me duplicate it, but the duplicate film is awful. Fortunately my little sister was my patient today so I can evaluate her good copy. She was very patient with me and I was able to finish the entire appointment! :D It feels good. I did forget to see if she wanted a prescription toothpaste, though. I'll have to remember that when she comes back in for her recall appointment. I also used her as my 1A exam and passed off 2 PE's! Hope it keeps going smoothly.

January 13, 2010

My patient today was my good friend, Shar. She was so nice to let me work on her. I feel bad for my patients because I'm still having a hard time not hurting them! I did a lot better focusing on my angulation and activation. That dang adaptation is getting me everytime. I felt like I was more aware of where my tip was, I guess that's a good start. X-rays went awesome. No retakes! She was so easy I used her as an exam patient. Only 2 more quads on Shar. Can't wait to finish her off and be done with my 1st exam!

January 11, 2010

My husband, Josh, was my patient today. And patient he was. X-rays are still causing me some problems but I got them done with a couple retakes. I'm getting faster at probing. Maybe it's because I'm just getting more used to seeing the same numbers over and over again. I remember how hard it used to be to tell what the measurements are, but now it's like there's an automatic response to when I see how far my probe penetrates into the sulcus. I'm excited for Josh to come back. He's an easy patient....only 3 more quads!

January 6, 2010

My brother, David, was my patient today. Things went very smoothly! I wanted to scale his whole mouth because it'll be hard to get him back the rest of the semester, but I was only able to finish 2 quads. He was very patient and told me not to worry about hurting him because he has had his teeth drilled on without anesthesia during his mission in Uruguay. I was pretty clumsy scaling, but got back into it after a little bit. One thing that went really well was the OHI. It just seemed natural, I didn't even realize I was doing OHI! He was very interested and also very excited about trying some things we discussed. I love the education part of my job.

January 4, 2010

First day back! Seems weird to be here. It feels like I just left for the break! We practiced ultra-sonicing and area-specific scaling (with the Gracey's). It felt good to practice on my typodont again. It helps regain my confidence. We'll see how it goes on Wednesday!