No, Can it be??? I didn't think those even existed!!!

I found what I had always believed to be impossible to find: A very reliable board patient! Not only will her mouth almost surely qualify for WREB, but I'm not afraid she will disappear on me like those rare patients often do! She's always asking me how much she has to pay and just won't accept the fact that I'm going to take care of her and pay for her cleaning as a thank you for being a great board patient (also hopeful insurance that she will actually come). My afternoon patient today cancelled on me (of course, the one patient I didn't even want to schedule in the first place would cancel on me!) After finishing my class V patient in the morning I called all of my back up patients and none of them could come. I tried for the long shot of calling my board patient and by some crazy miracle she was available to come in for x-rays and to clean her upper arch (that definitely wouldn't qualify at all). What kind of luck is that??? Man, I definitely have someone watching over me:)

Open your mouth so I can get some work done!

AM- 4q. class V exam with 4BWX and and opportunity for subgingival irrigation in one pocket. This patient was the epitomy of health after perio. From the hygienist standpoint, I was very proud of her though I must admit the student side of me was kicking and screaming that she had been a class II 2 years ago and hadn't had a cleaning since but she still had hardly any bleeding and no significant calculus deposits!!! Seriously?!

PM- 2q. class IV exam and the oraqix PE. This patient is loudly inappropriate and I'm sure even though he was a class 4 and I was doing 2 quads I could have had him out of here by 2:30 but he talked and talked and seriously would not stop to let me clean. I actually started joking with him that I'd pull his bear hairs if he didn't open his mouth and let me work. He joked about how usually people say "shut your mouth so I can get some work done" but I use the verb open instead (which is not intended to mean: please keep on talking to me while I have the Gracey 13/14 in your 9 mm pocket!) I figured out a little more how to manage this patient. I learned that if I threw back the obnoxious comments he became a lot more mild and actually started to be quiet, relatively. He still hummed "Singing in the Rain" the whole time I scaled. Oh my, what a good experience but I'm glad he's finished. I'm also going to bring him back in April to see how he has been able to maintain his oral status (who knows... maybe it'll be a class 4 again? please?)

A great Class V day

6 quads of class V, that's it for me today. 6 very uneventful quads that were easy and smooth as usual. The kind of quads where you spend more time waiting for dentist and professors to come and evaluate than you spend actually scaling and polishing. Oh well, it was a nice relaxing day to start the week out with since yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I did get to clean 2 partial dentures, and that was fun, the upper denture actually had some calculus that I got to scale off (which was more than I found in the actual remaining teeth.) Luckily the patients here at the VA are so nice and interesting to work on. I really do enjoy working out here where it feels like I'm actually a semi-autonomous clinician and I can provide my patients with the best treatment possible without really fretting about cost or insurance or anything like that.

I was able to place arestin and periochip and take a pano and 4BWX in the morning and then I took 7 anterior PA's in the afternoon which was really good for me to practice. Not to mention the 70 PA's that are required of us this year!

Extra Patients... Oh wait, they're already yours!

Oh my gosh, what a day! First of all, I accidentally scheduled two patients for today at 8:00AM but luckily my class III couldn't come. The patient that came instead had 2 quads of a class II and 1 quad of a class III so I used the experience as an exam and it want really well. I keep having troubles with my dang fulcrum finger and I tend to roll my thumb to the side making it difficult to get the proper angulation and adaption. I was able to finish her with only one error even though she had an extremely tenacious anterior mandubular calculus bridge on the lingual surfaces. It was the kind of tough calculus that instead of flaking off, I was only able to scrape a very small grainy layer of calculus off with each very focused and intense stroke. I had to use both ultrasonic tips to finally get it all off and I still missed one spot (but only one!!!)



My afternoon patients I hadn't been able to get ahold of due to a disconnected phone line. I was supposed to have a mom and daughter. I also had another patient that I could call in case they didn't show up. Of course, I tried to call my backup and she couldn't come... then i called like four other patients and none of them could come. I was about to turn to the familial lifeline when I thought to ask Mr. Salomon if there was an extra patient lying around anywhere and to my excitement, there was! A mom and daughter that said they had been called to come in to an appointment at 12:30 today. I looked at the health history forms and lo and behold: it was my patients! I don't know how they got called or how they remembered to come in, but either way I was so excited! I also was frustrated with Mr. Salomon because he didn't see that I had put them in the schedule (granted, I had forgotten to put the daughter's name on the schedule so it kind of threw him off). I got the daughter cleaned (a 1A of course) and then I screened the mom who is just your typical class II. Oh well. Still no board patient hopes but at least I was productive enough...

Where am I?

Oh my gosh! I'm so glad that today is over! I don't know what's wrong with me but it's like my mind is gone and all my clinical skills with it.

This morning I had a class IV!!! the first I've ever seen, with the most mobile teeth I've ever seen. I got two quads cleaned on him with only two errors and it only took me 45 minutes! I was feeling really good about myself because my patient had been rather difficult to deal with, his calculus wasn't bad but he would not stop talking!!! No joke, I had my gracey in his 9mm pocket and he was still talking to me. And some of what he was saying was very inappropriate and made me and even Professor Alexander very uncomfortable working on him. Of course, he has to be a class IV so I can't help but see him again... dang requirements! I guess that's how the working world will go though.

I called Ben to meet for lunch and he happened to be working so I was on my own. I remembered that I had a hot pocket in the freezer but soon after realized it was missing which didn't really surprise me. I decided to eat the clam chowder in the locker which of course exploded all over me and the locker room when I tried to open it. Aagh!!

My afternoon patient came... and so did her husband. Luckily Staci's patient had a cold sore so I gave the husband to her which of course was a class III... oh well. My patient ended up being a class III as well and might serve as my mockboard patient for the first test. Hopefully all goes well. However, Kami pointed out that once again I was fulcruming incorrectly, and leading with the heel instead of the toe of the instrument. I kept forgetting little random things like writing down the spots missed for Kami, and filling out certain papers, and even including BWX on my treatment plan. WHO AM I? and WHERE HAS THE REAL DENVER GONE??? Hopefully she comes back quickly because I don't know how long I'll be able to make it like this. Thanks to very forgiving and helpful professors that are here to try and steer me back to where I should be.

L.A.M.E.

Welcome back, now wake up!!!

I swear, I was going to be all ready for this semester and do everything on time and exactly as is to be expected of me, but then I have to go and screw it all up the very first week! Apparently yesterday I was supposed to be the CA at the VA and I didn't even know about it because I wrote it down in the wrong calendar and I thought I only had Tuesday CA days left... oops! Now it's trying to do everything I possibly can to make that up to my fellow students and Professor Alexander... Dang it!

The First of the Last ...at Last

This is my first day back at the VA and it is now the start of spring semester which also happens to be my last semester ever! (unless I miss school too much and come running back to the safety of books and tests). Finally I'm going to graduate!!!!
This morning I had a patient that was pretty easy, just a 1B but a very nice girl. I was supposed to be doing a re-eval but he no showed. Then I was supposed to have a second patient when my 8o'clock went home but he cancelled as well. It's been a pretty quiet morning. Thank goodness for Shalyce's second patient with K.C. the awesome golden retreiver-siberian husky mix service dog. He detects seizures about 3 minutes before they happen so he warns his owner and helps him get his medications and be safe during episodes. He was a cute huge dog and he talks and does lots of tricks that his owner was showing us while we waited for the premedication to kick in. Then it was just hanging out and trying to remain productive by helping others clean and such while I waited for lunchtime!

My afternoon patient was so awesome! He was very nice with class 3 periodontitis. I was able to do four injections, arestin, and use him as 2 quads of a class 3 exam! The injections were very cool, he is a larger man so I got to experience finding the landmarks around the extra tissue. I got him numb and then I got to try to get arestin down to the bottom of a 10mm pocket. So cool!!! I really loved it although I'm not so sure how I did on the scaling since my instructor was a bit unclear during scale check.