What a day!!

Today was quite the day. Leigh and I had an adventure today with the air powder polish. The air powder polish combines water with air and sodium bicarbonate to polish the surfaces of your teeth. It feels like a very abrasive process, but its actually better for your teeth than polishing with the rubber cup. Leigh and I dressed up in our sexy hair nets and "plastic bags". I found out the hard way that the foot pedal is very touchy. Leigh sprayed water up my nose. I made sure to get her back once we switched. :) It was quite the ordeal. I don't know why you would ever do that to a patient. We also got to polish, floss and do flouride today...Finally! Something I know how to do! It was really odd doing it again after such a long absence from it.
Today was a stressful day when it came to PE's... we had the dental screening PE and I sure hope that I did well. Cross your fingers!

I made it through...

This weekend was a crazy emotional rollercoaster and this morning I woke up emotionally exhausted. Amazingly enough I was able to work with Leigh again and things went very well. She was a great help to me and I had a few "A Ha!" moments while I was scaling. Anterior scaling went very well and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. Posterior scaling is coming along . . .I do know that I need some more help with it. I'm sure I can ask a TA on Wed. I passed my PE's off without a hitch also. Things went well today. To make things even better we get out of clinic early to have a lunch in learn! Free food! This was a good start to the week. I know things will get better from here - they have too!

Great Day!

I had such a great day today. Today I was albe to be the operator and Leigh was my patient. She was an excellent patient and gave me some great tips. We went through the whole process today starting from HHX and vitals all the way through the OHI. We charted and did all of our exams. I can see that it would be very time consuming. Luckily I was able to get an idea of how it would go on Monday, so this afternoon went by really well. My instructors and the TA's said that I was doing really well. Today was a positive day.
I also had four PE's to pass off today. Before today I was worried about how I would be able to get everything done. Things went so smoothly today that I was able to pass them off without a hitch. I passed with flying colors and they said that my scaling strokes looked really good. I had a few things that I need to work on. I'll be practicing this weekend!!

Such a good patient. . . .

Today I was the wonderful patient that Leigh had the priveledge of working on. We were supposed to switch half way through today, but instead Professor Costley told us to take the whole day to work on one another and that we would switch on Wed. This meant that I was in the chair the whole time. Leigh did a really great job. She was able to pass off a lot of her PE's today. I'm so glad! I have four to pass off on Wed and this will give me more time to do them.
Leigh and I get along really well and we had a lot of fun today. Wed is going to be a blast too! I'll have plenty of time to practice and a good patient to work on. :) Wish  me luck!

Today was a good day

Today was a really good day! I was partners with Jodie today. We took turns looking in one anothers mouths and charting the existing restorations. We both found that it was difficult to tell the difference between sealants and composite fillings . . . We started to get the hand of it towards the end. After we finished charting we had 45 minutes to practice! I was really grateful we had all of this time to perfect the things that we have already learned. I've felt like we've had all of this new stuff to learn and that we don't have time to work on it until days later. Professor Costley said that the next few clinic days we would have lots of time to practice . . .thank heavens!
Now that today is over . .its time for the weekend!  Its fall break, so we don't have class on Friday and our Radiology class has been canceled for tomorrow. Sadly, the only thing I really plan on doing over the break is homework, but I do have a fun date planned with Mike on Saturday!
Its going to be a good weekend. Just have the break from school will be enough for me! :)

Purple Teeth!

We are true Wildcats! Today we used disclosing agents on each other to find our plaque free index. We had purple smiles all during clinic! The disclosing agent helps us to see the plaque that will be on a patients teeth. It was really fun working on one another today. Emily and I had a lot of fun. Brooke, our historian, walked around taking pictures of all of us and our puple mouths . . .it was quite the site!
We also had time to pass off our explorer PE. I was so frazzled! I missed things that I shouldn't have and I am so upset with myself. I still passed, so no worries there . .but I now what position to sit in! I can't believe I forgot.
Oh well, my day is half way over . . .thank heavens!

Posterior Scaling

Today was a super busy day. . . and a bit of a stressful one. We started scaling on posterior teeth. I really feel like I have the hang of it. My instructors said that I was doing really well. They had some praise as well as some good advice.
We also learned how to create a treatment plan for our patients. I'm going to need to practice! There is a lot of stuff on this PE.
After we went through each PE we had the chance to practice on one another. I practiced the scaling as well as probing. I was debating passing of my probing PE today. One of the TA's came over and said "You're doing really well . . .I'm going to go get an instructor!" I was completely caught off gaurd! I guess I'm passing it off today. It feels nice to have it out of the way. . .but it was a bit stressful. Instructor Hafen was great though and I ended up doing really well.
I'm so grateful today is over. . .that means its almost the weekend. Now lets hope I can remember what I learned come Monday!!!

Turn! Turn! Turn!

Turn! Turn! Turn! . . .Thats what we heard all day today. This morning we started scaling on anterior teeth. In the past it has been vital that we turn the working end of intrument, so we don't poke the patient. Today it was even more vital that we do so. These sickle scalers could do some serious damage!
Maren was my patient today and she was great. We had a bit of an incident when her gums started bleeding . . .but with some dabbing of the 2x2 and a few laughs we were ready to start again. She did a great job on my teeth too! The instructors had great criticism for us and it was good to have them there to physically direct our hand.
Everything went really well today. Monday is a really long day . . . this morning went by fast. Lets hope radiology does too!