Got 'er Done!

Well, as much as I detest Larry the Cable Guy (except in the movie Cars) I have to admit that his catch phrase is a perfect description of today. Shalyce and I teamed up and got Vickie all clean (Shalyce more than me actually, but I helped do a little bit). I was distracted at first because I was trying to get my patient (Emilie's board patient) to schedule a make up time to get x-rays done before the boards. Then I was translating for my peers because a ton of them brought in spanish speaking patients and then I was helping Professor Hansen get me all registered to present our Second Life table clinic in DC in June and then I was running around getting papers for Costley so I could check my grades. Oh wow, and now it's all done!!! Shalyce let me try her loops while scaling and they were so nice! She got them from Perioptix and they were only $395.00 so I'm definitely going to have to look into getting me a pair of those!! Well, until next semester... over and out!

Ending With a No Show... Oh Well!

My patient didn't come, I called him just a bit ago and apparently he's working in Park City! Luckily I just need 1 quad of anything so I'm going to share Vicki the second year with Shalyce. Thank you Shalyce!!! You're awesome! The only problem with him not showing up is that he's Emilie Egan's Board patient and she was planning on taking x-rays on him... I set up an appointment for him to come in tomorrow at 3 for x-rays and I'm planning on riding him until he shows up. He can't not show up for her because I would feel really bad about it all... Oh well, I guess I'll go help Shalyce with Vicki, I'm kind of in an apathetic mood now that he didn't show up and with how crazy this month has been so I'm not being very helpful which is not usually how I am. All I can say is thank goodness it's the LAST clinic day!!!!!! WOOOOHOOOO!!!

Better Late Than Later

Today I got to clinic way early and I called my class 3 patient to make sure she was awake and coming in. When she answered she said "oh I was meaning to call you, is there any way I can reschedule???" I told her that this was my last Monday and that if she couldn't come in today I couldn't see her and that I really really needed her to come in today. She said she'd be late but that she'd still come. The last time you can seat a patient is at 9:40 and of course she arrived at 9:38... I was able to get her done because I only had one quad (thank goodness!) and I got all my charting turned in early because Instructor Vining got tied up with other scale checks so I charted while I waited. It turned out to be a pretty good day in the end... thank goodness! MY CLASS 3 IS FINALLY DONE!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!

Worst Clinic Day EVER!!!

So, today on my way in to clinic I saw that Natalie was pretty stressed out because her pt. canceled on her just before clinic started. I decided to help her out because I had a pt. coming in that I wouldn't really need except for a few PA's so I told her that after I finished with the x-rays she could take over completely. To help speed up the process, Natalie did vitals while I wrote HHX in the chart... but his BP ended up being 150/105! I asked the pt. if they had ever been told before that they had high BP and the pt. claimed that no one had ever mentioned anything. Then the pt. told me that they had just had a Rockstar energy drink 1 hr before the appointment! Well, duh!!! So Natalie and I moved to her chair and she let me pass off the Diagnodent PE on her. An hour later we returned to my patient to recheck BP and this time it was at 135/85, still high, but at least treatable. Boy was that frustrating so Natalie and I worked together to get 3 PA's and 1 set of vertical BWX so we each got something we needed out of him. Then Natalie charted while I probed our problematic patient and it turns out that the pt. had lots of calculus, absolutely zero cavities past or present, and very little bone loss. Anyone who is familiar with the national board exams knows exactly what that means: the absolute perfect board patient! Of course, it would be unethical to make him wait until next year to be cleaned so I gave him to one of the seniors who had been frantically looking for a board patient to use next month. She was so excited and relieved to finally have found that precious board patient. It felt good to help out everyone and at the same time get my last x-rays and pass off my last PE, but after thinking that today would be an easy day and having it turn out to be one of the most stressful, confusing, difficult days ever and not actually get any quads out of it I couldn't help but feel incredibly frustrated. And to top it all off, I got to pay for the pts x-rays because apparently his wife (who's come in before and paid for everything herself) didn't tell him to bring any kind of payment method. He's supposed to come back in again next week, hopefully that goes a lot smoother...

One More To Go...

So, my class 3 patient showed up at 8:50 today so I was a little set back on time but it was all good. I still managed to clean two quads with only four mistakes! She had some real tough, black subgingival calculus because she hasn't been cleaned in so long. It was a lot of work and Instructor Vining helped me every step of the way from numbing to checking my scaling progress to make sure I didn't overwork myself. Many thanks to him! Also, my patient was awesome, she's such a sweet fun woman and I love working on her. Another good thing: now she has to come in again so she'll be taking up another clinic day so that's one less patient to waste!!! So cool, great day!!! However, the new policy that Nick came up with to inform us that our patients are here by changing the colored dot on the computer schedule is completely ridiculous. Who sits around and watches their computer while we wait??? That's what the freakin intercom is for!!!

I Never Thought I'd Say This:

My class 3 patient is running late and I'm actually really happy about it. She called me at 8 (when she was supposed to show up for her appointment) and said she was just waking up. I only have to do 3 quads on her and after that I only have 1 anything quad, 3 PA's, and 1 more PE (the diagnodent) left. I'm glad that I'm so close to being finished so I'm not stressed at all anymore but the problem is that I still have four clinic days left! I have to have a patient in the chair everyday so I'll probably just bring in 1B patients until I run out of sessions but that's frustrating because I can do 4 quads of 1B patients each time and I don't really want to be wasting my patients that could be used for next year/semester. As for today, we'll see how much I get done of my class 3... if I don't finish it could be even better because then it'll take up at least one more clinic day which right now is always a good thing.

Lame Day!

Well, today was incredibly lame, I wanted to bring in my class 3 patient or London, Colby's sister because she would be easy and is on spring break right now but I already had a different patient scheduled and she called this morning to say she would be coming. She came in and was very nice and let me take four BWX and 1 PAX so that was nice but then we got into the chair and she informed me that she had to leave by 9:30!!! I could've finished more had I known that, I wouldn't have done conventional films that take FOREVER to develop but no, so all I got today were some x-rays and a full mouth of probe depths all that I am not even going to use because she ended up being half class 2 and half 1B. Blah! Also, I'm clinic assistant today which of course I forgot until I got here and even though I usually bring my lunch anyway, of course this morning as I left I thought: "I get out at 1:00 I'll be fine to wait until I get home to eat..." LAME!!! Oh well, that's why I have pop tarts and crackers in my car. Hopefully FHE tonight will be good enough to make up for today, Brother Barnes did say he had a unique lesson planned...

Easy, Easy 1B Day... Thank Goodness.

So last night I took a Tylenol PM because I haven't been sleeping very well this week and i've got a pretty good headache going on. It felt so good to get a real nights sleep and i even got to sleep in (sorry to my students for missing SI! I really really needed the sleep). I woke up just before 10:00 and hung out with my aunt for breakfast. I got to the school at 12:10 and set up my unit and brought in my patient who happened to be a super easy 1B patient. I didn't have to take his BP or do a full HHX because he was last in in October, and he barely had any calculus because he went to his regular dentist about three months ago. I got him all scaled in 20 minutes and only missed 2 tiny spots which I flicked off in a few seconds. He was out by 2:15 which was very nice because that allowed me to take my time cleaning up and charting, and even gave me some time to blog again. Welp, here comes pod wrap, I'd better get going.