"Wow, he is strong."

My morning patient was a 1B and I was able to complete her with no errors. I was also able to get 4 bitewings and 6 CONVENTIONAL PA's. I am glad I finally got some PA's and I am also glad that I finally forced myself to use conventional film! For the afternoon, I saw my mockboard patient one last time to finish her last 2 quadrants. Professor Perry showed me some really good tips as he did my scale check. He reminded me to do a horizontal sweep with my scaler on the straight facial and lingual of the anteriors. When Prof. Perry left, my patient said to me "Wow, he is strong." So what does that say about me? It says my lateral pressure is garbage, that's what it says! Lateral pressure..do I need to print that in large letters on all of my scalers?? I look forward to the muscles in my hands getting stronger as I build this skill. My few missed areas were mesials, so at least there is a pattern I can try and work on. I have noticed that I sometimes skip around to different areas of the mouth when I scale. For instance, I may start on the mandibular anteriors, scale them for a while, then hop to a different tooth. Then back to the anteriors. This is little thing that will become a big time waster! My goals for next clinic day are to always scale the area to completion before moving on and to try exploring from different chair positions to make sure that I have removed all of the deposit.