Back to School!

Wow. I can't believe it is here. Summer went by WAY to fast! We had a good review today in clinic, which was helpful to get my mind back into the patient mode. We were supposed to do an OD on another student, but I was the odd man out and so Professor Alexander let me do it on her. It was so helpful to get feedback from an instructor acting as my patient! (especially when I needed to work out some squeeks from the summer!) She told me I could use a little lighter pressure when probing the anterior teeth and to go higher up the neck in the extra-oral exam up into the hair line and more behind the ears because the lymph nodes extend clear up there. She also told me a good hint to make the patient own the pain. If they experience blood or tenderness when you are probing explain that it is becuase they have gingivitis in that area, not from anything you did. I thought this was a great way to approach that and a good way to educate the patient.

I also got some good tips on sharpening instruments...I really appreciated the hands on help. I hope that I can take what I learned today and apply it so I can really develop the skill of sharpening and do it right...I don't want to ruin my expensive instruments!!!

This semester I really want to learn more about the individual instruments...I want to use all of them and become comfortable with all of them and know when it would be best to use each one...and then after becoming familiar with them I can choose my favorites! I am excited to get started with the semester, and of course extremely nervous!!! I feel like we have great staff to learn from and we need to take advantage of this! Good luck to all my classmates!!! Let's stick together and Get 'er done!