Mock Patient Day!

Today was our mock patient day, and I was the provider today. I was so nervous all weekend for this day, even more nervous for today than for wednesday. I was just scared that I wouldn't remember everything. It went well. I had trouble with the anterior scaling. She was bleeding all over, and I couldn't figure our why. Even instructor skeen watched me and she thought I was doing fine. I just felt bad. Oh well. I am just soooo glad that today is over! Yeah!

Starring me, as the patient!

Today was our first mock patient day. I was the patient first, and Holly R. worked on me. Everyone was really nervous because we don't really know what we are doing, but it went really well. The instructors and TA's were all really helpful. Everyone worked really fast, probably because they wanted to leave because tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I thought that Holly did a really good job. She had a good method of where she scaled, and she was very thorough. It was good for me too, because I got to review what I needed to do, so I will be prepared for next time.

Emergency day!!

Today we learned what we should do in the case of an emergency situation. It was pretty fun and laid back. It is scary to think that something could happen to one of my patients that would cause me to need to know how to treat them for an emergency. It reminds me of when I was an assistant, and a guy fainted on me when I was trying to take a pano on me. It was scary, but in that situation my instincts kind of kicked in, so I didn't freak out as bad as I could have. We also passed off our sealant PE, and it went well.

Sealant day!

Today we learned how to do sealants. I did sealants when I was in dental assisting school, but that was only on a mannequin. I have seen them done more times than I can count though. In the office that I work in, the hygienists don't do any sealants. The dentist does them all. So, I don't know how I feel about them. Anyway, it wasn't hard. It was fun. And it was a totally laid back day. We passed off our air powder polishing PE and our instrument sharpening PE. They both went really well. I am getting more nervous for our first real patient day! It is exciting, but scary too!

Air powder Polish day!

Today we learned how to air powder polish. It was really crazy. You have to put on all sorts of fun stuff to protect yourself from the aerosol, which goes everywhere! We had to wear a hair net and a plastic apron over all of our other PPE's. It was kind of tricky to manuver the high speed suction and the air powder polisher. It was fun though. To start off, we practiced on a dirty penny. It was amazing how clean the penny got. It ended up being really shiny. When Laura practiced in my mouth I gagged. It was so disgusting. I thought I was going to puke. It tasted like I had a mouthful of ocean water. It was the most terrible taste ever. EWWW! I am just dreading being the patient for someone to pass their PE off on the air powder polisher. YUCK!

The best day yet!!

It really wasn't the best day yet, but I couldn't think of a title now that I have changed my settings to allow me to have a title!! I never knew you could. Anyway, today was a great day in clinic. We worked on instrument sharpening. I was quite hesitant beforehand because I didn't want to ruin any of my instruments. I was relieved though, that it wasn't as bad as I had expected (I feel like I am always saying that about everything we do in clinic). Insrument sharpening isn't very scary or hard, but I could see how it could become boring or tedious. My goal for today was to pass off my selective polishing PE, and I successfully did that and also passed off the fluoride application PE too!! Yeah! I was looking at the rest of my PE's, and I discovered that we only have 4 left. It is so strange to think that we are so close to being done with the semester! Scary!

Today was fluoride day. We had a lot of time to just review, and it was really nice to have a laid back day. Fluoride is really easy, but we have to leave it on the patients teeth for 4 minutes which seems like an eternity. I practiced my universal posterior scaling, and it went really well. I felt good about it, a lot better than last week. Last week was awful, and today felt really good. I am feeling a lot more confident. I even passed off my universal scaling PE which isn't due until next time!! Yeah. I am feeling more on top of things this week.