February 15, 2011

Mockboard.  Luckily Emily let me use a patient of hers for mockboard.  He was great and I got 100%!!!!!!!!  Wahoo!  I felt like I had all the time in the world and that things went so smooth.  I felt confident too, which is a great feeling.

February 8, 2011

Getting down to the wire.
No time to do whole appointments until I find board patients!!
Screenings in the morning...no success.
Brought my husband in for me to practice anesthesia and pass of nitrous.  He handled it surprisingly well!

I learned a lot I didn't know yet about giving injections:
One thing I learned is:  touching anything with the needle while in the path to the site of injection is contamination.

February 1, 2011

Still need a mockboard AND a board pt... :S

Today I treated a class V and a IV!!! Love treating IV's.  Things went really well and I felt like I was really helping the patient control the disease and increase her overall health.  That's my favorite thing about cleaning severe periodontally-involved patients:  I feel like I'm really doing some good!  Hopefully I'll be able to work in a periodontist's office or at least a office with a population of perio patients!  That is if I pass boards...so sick of studying and stressing.

January 25, 2011

Mockboards...
Rocked em!
My patient had heavy, heavy deposit and I only missed one spot so received a 94 on my exam. Hopefully this means I have improved and refined my skills from last semester where I received a 74 on the first mockboard.  I also really felt great about my speed and exploring skills.  Things just went so well!!! Hopefully this is how the real boards will go...more stress to come...

Will work for 1 perfect board patient...

AM: Had a recall patient from last semester.  He is a sweet, old, 85-year old man.  When it was time for him to go I just felt so sad thinking I might not see him ever again.  He wished me and my husband the best on our future endeavors and I told him I was so glad I got to know him and that I would refer him to a good student next year.  I love this part of my job.

PM: Saw a 15-year old.  She was fun.  Did 5 sealants on her (all by myself, might I add)...assistants?  Who needs 'em!

I NEED A BOARD PATIENT, ANOTHER MOCKBOARD PATIENT, SOME CLASS IV's....
That's it.

So...what's calculus?

AM:  Finished my patient from last week.  She was very sweet and tolerated injections very well.  Note on the PSA injection:  come in to the penetration site with the correct angles.

PM:  I'm trying to look for another mockboard or board patient for myself or someone else with every patient and I really thought I found one today.  Nope.  What the heck does calculus feel like?  THIS IS MY 4TH SEMESTER!  I should know by now!  I think I have a pretty good idea, maybe it just wasn't enough areas....I don't know....
OH well.
Finished a class 2 in 2 hours. (She had to leave early, but it tested my speed skills that is for sure!)

The VA...kind of like a re-occuring bad dream

I just can't seem to come to love the VA.  I love a lot of the people I meet there, but the clinic is just disorganized and some of the people are just not very understanding to us students!  I'll choose to be optimistic!!!

Two great things of the day:  I may have found oral cancer.  The doctor wants to do a biopsy and took a picture.  Wow-scary stuff.  (Obviously this is not a highlight for the patient, but it is great that I am able to see that it DOES happen and all those cancer screenings we do that come up negative are worth the one that comes up positive).  Also another patient helped me to feel peace during my super busy and stressful day.  He is a very selfless man who takes care of his wife who just had her 2nd stroke.  He talked about how much he loved his wife and wanted to take care of her.  He spends a lot of time in the temple volunteering and is a scriptural genius.  He taught me some very insightful things about Isaiah.  Although this isn't dentally related, I just love the part of my job that gets to meet amazing people like this who help me realize what is really important.