Last day in First Semester Clinic

Bittersweet!! (minus the bitter part). First semester is over! And I'm alive! I can not believe that I am 1/4 the way done with the program, crazy!! It is crazy if I think of how much I have learned over these past few months. I came here knowing pretty much NOTHING about dental hygiene, and now my brain is chuck full of information! For our last clinic day, we learned emergency procedures, CA duties, and had our Clinic Manual test. All i can say is...I am in desperate need of break, and I'm sure everyone else is too. There could not be a better group of girls than the ones in our year! I love them all! Happy Christmas break everyone!!

Real Patient Day!

Real Patient day arrived. And I survived! Thanks to my wonderful husband for being my very patient, patient! I have been so nervous/excited for this day since the program started! I did not expect it, but things came pretty naturally to me. I got all of my paperwork mostly correct and remembered the order of things. And luckily, my X-rays turned out good! I was worried about my x-rays because I just never know how they are going to turn out. Some days they are great, and some days it looks like a monkey took them. The only thing that could have gone better was waiting for an OD check, timing was just not on my side today. When it was finally my turn for the OD check, I was gone taking X-rays so I had to wait again. So I did not even get to OHI, but hey, that's just how it goes sometimes! I learned a valuable lesson about timing and how long a real appointment takes! Overall, I am just glad it is over and that I did okay! I am glad we got to have this little practice run before next semester, when every clinic session is a real patient day! Oh boy, ready or not!

Relaxation Day 2

Another great day in clinic! Heather scaled my last 4 quads, did a great sealant on my tooth number 21, and finished up the appointment. The next time I am in clinic, my husband will be too! Crazy how fast it came! I wish I could say that I feel 100% confident about seeing real patients, because I don't. But it makes me feel better that pretty much NO ONE feels ready for real patients, so I'm not alone. Hopefully this feeling will go away as I get more practice. I am scared about finding patients also. Me and Jamie share a family, so that cuts my patients in half right there. I know everything will work out though!! Prof. Costley told us that we have basically learned all we will learn in clinic! The rest of the program will mostly be practicing and refining everything! I can not believe how fast this semester has gone by. I am excited for Christmas break to spend time with my family. I miss them. My textbooks have been my family for these past few months, and I have not been the most pleasant person to be around due to stress taking over my brain! Until next time!

Relaxation Day 1

Today was wonderful because I got to relax and be the patient all day! Heather is the operator and she did a really great job today. I am glad we have had the opportunity to do these mock patient weeks. Even being the patient, I am still learning a lot about a real appointment. Some times I feel like I finally have everything down, and other days I feel like there is just TOO much to remember. It is just all going to come down to practice, practice, practice. So every chance we get to practice is a good thing! One week from today is real patient day!! I'm getting excited, I entered my husband's appointment in Eaglesoft today. It all feels official now! Am I hygienist ready?? Let's hope so! Also...I passed off my last PE of the semester today!! What a good feeling! About 1/4 of the way done with the program, I can't believe it!!

Mock Patient Day 2

I finished! YAY! And passed off my sealant PE, which means...Only ONE PE left! Today I finished OHI, did a sealant, scaled the 4 quadrants, polished, and the applied the fluoride varnish. WHEW! Appointments take a long time!! I really need to speed up the process, but it will just take some practicing! Heather has been a great patient this week. I was nervous for scaling and I definitely need more practice but I did okay! I love Dr. Hansen! She is so helpful and encouraging and she has really great pointers for scaling. She also told me that I catch on to things quickly, which shocked the heck right outa me! It made me feel good. I love all of our instructors and TA's, they all have been so sweet and helpful! Now that the semester is almost over and I finished a "real" appointment, I have just now realized how much I have learned this semester. I'm finally starting to realize that I maybe can do this! This semester has flown by so fast. I have heard people say that it's the quickest 2 years of your life, they weren't lying! Some days it feels like this might be the longest 2 years of my life, but this semester felt like a blur. I love all of the Dental Hygiene girls, couldn't ask for better friends to do this all with! What a good day!

Mock Patient Day 1

Wow! Today went better than I expected. I am really glad we are doing these mock patient days because today really reinforced all of the "housekeeping" parts of an appointment. I feel much better about the order to do things, treatment planning, and when/what to have an instructor sign. It finally all clicked to me. I did get a little confused about when to do a new blue sheet, green sheet, and health history survey (every appoinment? every 6 months? every year?) but I think I've got it down now. I want to read over my clinic manual again before real patient day so I can make sure I have everything correct. Today I got to the end of OHI. So Wednesday, I will be scaling all 4 quadrants, selective polish, fluoride varnish, and complete Heather's last 3 sealants. I will also need to pass off my sealant PE and my sharpening PE. I hope I can get it all done in time! Another reason that these Mock Patient days are a good idea is because it gave me a really good idea of how much time I will have. I definitely need to pick up the pace! The time flies so fast when you are the operator, I had no idea it took me so long to do all of those things. I think that now I have the order down, I can move a little quicker and the appointment will flow much better. Crossin' my fingers that Wednesday goes well!

Instrument Sharpening and Flouride

Today I passed off my air-powder polish, Fluoride, and Walkout PE's, yay! I don't really enjoy receiving fluoride in any form I have decided, I wish Weber County would just fluoridate the water, dang it! But If I have to pick one, I pick varnish because it's quicker and more effective. Today we learned how to sharpen our instruments. We got to practice on WSU instruments so that we don't ruin our own. We used mostly the stationary instrument, moving stone technique. The laminated sharpening guides are really helpful to make sure I am using the correct angle of the stone and my instrument. Well, real patient day is coming up quicker than i ever thought it would and next week is our mock patient days. I will be the operator all of next week and the week after that, I will be the patient. I'm excited to do a "real" appointment start to finish next week so that I can feel more prepared for the 22nd, when I will be working on my husband. The pod wraps that the TA's have done this semester have really helped, like giving us an example of a great OHI entry and also Marilyn made us all a tooth made of soap so that we can practice our angulation while scaling. I feel like we have not had much practice scaling at all. This worries me a little. Hopefully this week will give me some time to really practice my scaling!

Dry, Etch, Rinse, Isolate, Dry, Seal, Cure, Rinse, Check.

I am trying to make sure I get all of these steps down in my head so that I can be a sealant pro! Today Heather M was my partner and we got to do a sealant on each other. The sealant I did turned out pretty good! The only thing is I think I used a little bit too much sealant because I had to do some filing down because the the occlusal paper was showing up on spot of the sealant. I passed off my Selective Polishing PE today too, and was given some more good pointers for rubber cup polishing. I learned a valuable lesson today... I had just applied the seal to Heather's #31, when I realized, I don't have a curing light! DUH! Luckily an instructor ran and grabbed one for me, but LESSON LEARNED! I really need to have everything ready, and not just for sealants. When I have a real patient in the chair, I don't want to have to keep stopping and taking off my gloves to get things that I forgot. We also treatment planned the sealants in Eaglesoft and recorded our TX in the paper chart. Real patient day is coming so fast! I will need to read all of my PE's and make sure I know what I am doing so that it's a good day!