Why was I so nervous?!

My 13 year-old cousin came in today and he has braces on his maxillary teeth. I was SUPER nervous to use the air-powder polisher but it turned out that he didn't mind at all. He actually liked it better than the prophy cup polishing. Weird!! The only real trouble I had was with the x-rays. I took 4 BWX and neither one of the molars shots went back far enough. I had an instructor come and help me with the re-takes and we still ended up keeping the originals. That has happened to me with both my patients this week, so that was a little frustrating, but at least I shouldn't be marked down cause the originals turned out better. Overall, I thought the appointment went really well.

Success

My cousin came in today and I'm so upset that I didn't declare it as my IB exam. I planned on doing it, but after the OD I forgot and then it was too late. I only missed one spot of subgingival calculus TOTAL!! I was so excited when she said that I did that good...even though my patient didn't have much to begin with. I actually remembered to dry the anterior teeth this time and I was able to see the calculus so much easier. I also checked everywhere with the explorer too, which I usually don't do. And I got done with scaling in 35 minutes!!!

First No Show

Last Wednesday my patient forgot about her appointment, I called Monday and reminded her and then 15 minutes into the appt I called and she totally forgot. Luckily, Cameron was able to hurry from work so I had a patient. It actually worked out perfect cause I finished the scaling and did 15 PA's on him. I was so grateful that he was able to come, and now I know how horrible it is to have the stress of no patient.

1A Exam

On the 13th my cousins daughter came in and she was such a good patient. I did my 1A exam on her and she was so cooperative. I thought it was interesting to probe around just the permanent teeth and it sure saved a lot of time. The scaling was pretty easy and I actually ended up doing sealants on all her 1st molars. It went pretty good, I only had one sealant that I had to redo, and I actually had to have my instructor fix one spot on it after that and she even had a hard time with it. Overall I thought the appointment went really well and it was a great experience to work with a child. And best of all....I passed my exam!

Patient Complete

My brother came in today and I was very pleased about the way the appointment went. He didn't need x-rays so that saved me a little bit of time. He was a 1B and had hardly any calculus so that was nice. I scaled my first quad and when I had it checked I didn't have any missed spots. I was very excited about that! I 3 missed spots in the other 3 quads, but they were all in the same area on the mandibular anteriors. He has a lingual bar and I had a hard time getting around that, but it was good practice for me. He turned out to be a very good patient and I had a nice experience with completing a patient start to finish all in one appointment. I hope I have a lot more appointments like that :)

......Back Already

My first week of Clinic in second semester is officially over. We had a lab on Monday and then an actual patient today. My uncle John was nice enough to come in and be my experiment. I thought everything went pretty smoothly and I only have 2 quads left to scale. I was able to take 4 vertical BWX and 2 PA's so that was good practice for me. I had a hard time getting the calculus off in certain places, but luckily his teeth were pretty dang clean and it was only in the hard to reach places. Prof. Costley and our TA Sara had to help me with a lot of it, but it's gone now so that's all that matters. I had a little issue at the end because I didn't print off a walkout statement and instead took the treatment plan to the front desk. This caused a problem and John ended up paying for all his planned treatments instead of just what we got done today. In the end we got it all figured out, but I sure hope I don't make that mistake again!!!