Summer Clinic - Week 2

Procedures accomplished:

• preliminary denture impressions
• made custom trays for final impressions
• prophy
• impressions for diagnostic casts
• MOD onlay and DO inlay preps for typodont exams

It's nothing glamorous, like the occlusal preps a few people got to do, or even scaling and root planing, but it's progress. Those diagnostic casts mean I'm one step closer to prepping a crown - craziness for a first go round, but that's how it works around here.

Up for next week:

• final denture impressions
• record bases and wax rims for dentures
• custom trays, templates, mounting of diagnostic casts for crown prep consult
• cast MOD only and DO inlays by Thursday

Let's just say I need to get used to short lunches and staying late to do lab work....

Summer Clinic Week 1

All I can say is that so far, this is not at all what I expected.

Monday, we got our ginormous "comp care" binders which have this huge threat? warning? whatever it is, it's telling me that I better figure out what's going on and fast! And then, in true BCD fashion, the page quickly tells me that all of this could change in a second so everything I learned before will then be useless. Classic. The problem was that I didn't get much of a chance to sit down with this book all week. And come Friday, I wished I had. That whole "knowledge of the contents" part, you know.

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So much sitting and listening, just like D1 orientation. But this time, we get the clinic directors rotating in and out telling us how things run in their clinic. Of course, we get information that contradicts what we've been told before, and most of the time, people can't answer our questions. I spent Mon-Thrusday without patients, so I used my time to consult with professors about my denture patient, plan out his care, and study up on the xrays for my patient on Friday. I also had time to clean out my locker and get all my instruments sterilized for the upcoming rush.

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Wednesday, I was in class until 10am and then spent the day at lunch and then shopping with mom. That's my idea of summer school.

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Thursday we placed rubber dam on each other, and all I can say is I hope to never have to enjoy that experience again. It's just that I'm a mouth breather (which is a bad thing) and it kinda made me panic a bit.

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Friday was slow in the morning, but once 1:30 rolled around, I was sprinting until 5pm. My poor patient. He told me he wanted to finish the consults since he lives an hour away, but I don't think he (or I) knew what all that would entail and we were both exhausted when all was said and done. Oral diagnosis was great. It took an hour, and I actually did a pretty good job diagnosing all the cavities and my patient is great.

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Now, up to the 3rd floor for consults. Thank God Stephen was up there and free to help me get set up and on the right track (this would be the point at which knowing that entire binder would have helped).

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Operative consult, check. Preventive consult, check. And then they decided to take intraoral photos which was a bit of a circus, but that's ok. Fixed consult, here we go. This turned into an endo consult and then back to preventive and then we're throwing in nightguards and fluoride scripts and on and on. Once we finally got that all into Axium (grrr...) I had to go back to the operative consult to enter in the treatment because that professor was not helpful enough to guide me through the process (for my first time) and ask to sign off on my treatment plan. So, I finally got it all in the silly computer and got the script signed (to which the professor said, "Your patient is still here?) and we could finally go home (well, I could after I raced downstairs to clean up my chair, then back upstairs to clean up that chair).

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Did I mention that I had a runny/stuffy nose all day? By the time I got to Mom and Dad's to meet up for margarita night, I was officially working on being sick and now I've been on the couch all weekend. Gotta get better to see a patient on Monday!

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Please, Lord, let him come back and get treatment from me! I sure hope I didn't scare him away with our marathon appointment! Lesson learned: 2-3 appointments are the absolute limit with 2 being a much better option!

Going Back Tomorrow

It was a short two weeks. 6 weeks of school and then 4 more weeks off. Let the countdown begin!

First of all, I need to write down a few things I've been pondering so hopefully, I'll keep pondering them enough to maybe actually do something about them.

1) Been thinking about my lack of community. We really just observe at church, observe in our neighborhood and in this town. I go to school in Dallas and Erik works in Duncanville, and we just sleep here in Rockwall and go to a church service on Sunday. Last night, I thought about Zaccheus and how he tried to get away with just observing Jesus and what he was doing. He got called down out that tree super fast. Observing is not acceptable. Then Jesus went to his house with no notice - today. No time to run to the market or cook a lamb or sweep the floor - just straight up said "you don't get to just watch, in fact I'm going to be a part of what your life is really like - you don't get a chance to put on a show." Just some thinking.

2) Been thinking about my selfishness. Seriously, when I was in high school and college, I can't even name all the community service what-not I was involved in. I am so careful with my time now and so jealous of it. My time is so precious to me...but it's not mine and I tend to forget things like that. Guess that goes back to community...I'm not even very quick to give up time just to hang out with people. What is wrong with me and my reclusiveness? So not what Christianity is about.

3) Been thinking about what takes up my time. I had a bit of a FB hiatus that kicked off this thinking. It was great. I've totally revamped how I do FB and I'm still thinking about why I do it and what benefit it is. I've found that there are a good number of things that just kinda popped up in my life that are perfectly harmless, but take up my time and I never really thought through what "good" is in them. You know that passage of "whatever is good, whatever is noble...think about these things"? I found some of these time consumers (esp FB) creating issues in my life that weren't "good" for me. And none of the other things in that passage either. And even if chatting with friends seems harmless, a lot of it is mindless and useless and what place does that have in my life? I wondered, when did I just start doing things because it's something to do? When did I stop thinking about whether or not it was a "good" thing for me to do? It sure is cool though. At least I thought it was. There is so much good in simplicity. In making sure the important things are taken care of before spending 30 minutes on FB. Like studying. Or doing laundry. Or cooking a healthy dinner. Or working out. Or spending time with God. Or time with my husband. Or, heaven forbid, a new friend. 30 min in real life with a real person (possibly with coffee involved!) vs. 30 min on FB with random tidbits and maybe an encouraging word somewhere out there for good measure. Poor FB. It's not just that, there's a list of things I'm thinking about (including quilting...). I'm just glad I started thinking again.