April 11th...

This morning I saw an older guy that I saw in January. He was really nice and easy to talk to. I saw him in January for perio. maint. Then he wanted to make sure to come back before we graduated. He didn’t really have much to clean off, except for a lot of plaque on his third molars. I couldn’t believe this guy…not only did he have all of his own teeth, but he had ALL of his teeth!

I really prefer to see older patients. I don’t really know why. In a lot of ways it is much harder to see older patients because of their health history and all of their medications that we have to look up. But it is so much easier for me to talk to older people---even the people my own age and kids—very difficult!

This afternoon, I was supposed to see a little kid. But he didn’t come.

Then I saw my morning patient’s wife. She is a really cute lady with a full upper denture. She said that he last 2 husbands didn’t know about it and neither does her current husband. WEIRD! She wouldn’t take it out for me by assured me that she takes it out when she does her make-up. I think that I cleaned her lower teeth and did everything else in about 30 minutes. It seemed really quick because I didn’t have to check BP, probe, take x-rays, etc. It went by really fast.

Oh, and in the middle of all of this madness…Crystal and I were called upon to do a pano on some lady. A certain faculty hates us and I think goes out of her way to make us miserable. She knows that he can’t do anything but pretend like we are just happy to do WHATEVER she says. We can’t do anything right…either we aren’t bagging our instruments, putting our patients names in the computer, paying for our patients, etc. It is just getting a little old! Well, in a couple of weeks…I will never have to smell her perio. breath again. HOORAY!

Job Shadowing....

Yesterday I had the privilege of shadowing a local hygienist. She graduated from WSU about 25 years ago and has pretty much been working full time since then. I can’t really say that I was excited to watch her scale for 2 hours…but I was a little surprised at some of the other things that she did.

I found it really strange that instead of changing the barriers on the chair…she just flipped them around. Okay, maybe they are just trying to save .0001 cent! But then she wasn’t changing her gloves! Seriously this is not a matter of saving money—have ya ever heard of OSHA?!? She would just rinse her gloves off with water (no soap) then dry them off and go on with whatever she was doing---digging in her drawers, handling the patients chart, touching things at the front desk, etc. This patient’s mouth was spread all over the whole office. YUCK. I can understand that after you are out of school for a while—maybe we won’t be checking pulse and respirations anymore, but for heavens sake—change your gloves! There are some things that you just can’t skimp on!

Also, I realized that I would never want to work in this office. No one was talking (I was talking more to the patients than the hygienist), there was no music in the background…just the hygienist and her hand scalers (NOT EVEN AN ULTRASONIC) in a little room that you couldn’t even move around the patients head. When I start looking for a job I will be asking the DDS…how much are you going to pay me….do you have an ultrasonic…and is it possible to have a little bit of fun in your office? That’s all I need!

I hope that I not only pass my boards, but am able to find a great job afterwards. I am also hoping that the dentist that I work for will also allow Crystal and Jami to work there with me! We are kind of a package deal! Ha ha ha They just make my day go by much faster/better.

The rest of April 4th...

Ummm...This afternoon went a little bit better than this morning. I was able to see my Mock Board patient that I saw in January. He was 21 and had major build-up. I cleaned his LR, LL quads today. His tissue was just a flapin in the wind. I sure hope that after this great cleaning that I performed today---his mouth with start healing and then stay clean. He was really nice and I was able to have fun talking to him while I cleaned his teeth. It makes the time go by so much faster--plus we finished about 2 hours early. YEA! Another day down....only 2 more clinic days left for me! WaHOO!

SO SICK OF SCHOOL....

So there are 4 weeks left. You'd think that I could handle this! But not so! I am so sick of sitting in class, trying to have a little bit of motivation to study or perpare our final projects, paying for the patients that I am seeing, and listening to Mrs. Campbell bitch and moan! WOW! What is up with telling us that we have outstanding accounts--that we owe WSU $1 or we won't graduate. I am pretty sure that I have paid more than my dues to WSU! Is $1 really going to keep me and Crystal from graduating?!? REALLY! I can't handle her YELLING/ORDERING us around. I am personally sick of it. I will be so happy when I am out of here! I need to get out of WSU before I go crazy!

That's all for now...