Here we go finished up on my mom today and passed off two PE's pretty simple and she even remembered how I taught her to floss, hooray my OHI instructions are sinking in! But as I was scaling she says, "How ARE you going to get through this in an hour?" (In reference to the real word in an office) "I don't know mom, I ask myself that question too." Well as of right now my next clinic day is looking empty I hope I can find a patient, wish me luck!

Today I finished up scaling the last three quads on my friend, scaling her whole mouth I only missed 3 areas, but she is a 1b, so not too complicating. I was able to pass of my universal instrument PE using my barnhardt. I finished up and had my chart in on time and was able to help the other members of my pod clean up. Today we were told to sign up for our midterm review, I am a little uneasy because there is so much left that needs to be done... Gotta stick to it and do my best!

lab day

Today was a lab day where we didn't see a patient. It was nice to have a break and learn some new PE's instead. We learned how to take a blood glucose test and how to use the diagnodent caries detector. We also learned how to clean a good old denture. Pretty simple stuff. Next Monday is a holiday (no clinic) and then I have two more patients for this month. The end of the semester is already getting close, which is a scary thing!

Love my twin!

My patient for today canceled last week and I hadn't had much luck finding another so I called my mom this morning to see if she wanted to be seen to finish up her cleaning. Since Abbi was with her we didn't think she'd like to sit around the whole time so instead I decided to see my twin! I have been holding off working on her until I got faster, because she has a hard time sitting still for very long. She is a special needs patient and is mentally a lot younger than her real age. I was worried she wouldn't cooperate but she did so good! I tried to explain to her what I was doing and when I did she was okay with it. I was able to take bitewings (which I didn't think would even be possible) and I was able to finish OD. Considering they came all the way from Logan and didn't get there till around 2:00 I'd say I got a lot done and I am so grateful things worked out!

Good day!

Today went really well I was able to get the farthest on my patient than I have done before. My lovely friend came in today and it was good to see here. It was refreshing that she really genuinely cared about her teeth and wanted to know what I was doing. I was able to take x-rays on her (conventional) which I had been avoiding but it was so simple I don't know why I worried. I was able to complete all of OD and OHI and scaled one quad! This is a big boost for me because I feel so extremely slow, it is nice to become a little faster. I think my skills are slowly building up each time, the more I do it the faster I become and its a good feeling to have some progress.

the calculus flew!

Today I saw a 1b patient for the second time and was able to complete all four quads. I ran into some cement from braces that was hard to remove and that held me up on time so when I got to the lowers I was rushing and ended up having like 8 misses subgingivally (awful I know). I also played the waiting game, we really need more instructors to pass off PE's with. But I actually got on PE done today! Hooray now I have a whole two done and how many more to go? I need to make some goals. But my patient had a lot of buildup on the lingual of her lower anteriors (up until this point I haven't been able to see calculus so readily) and upon scaling It came off pretty well I actually caught a piece on my lab jacket, it was pretty exciting! All in all today was pretty good.

Today I was lucky...

Well folks today was a worst case scenario turned into a pretty great scenario. My patient didn't show, he was scheduled at nine so I am already short an hour, but he never came (He is a friend, but I am now debating that status) You see for a hygiene student, a "no-show" = NO GOOD. So here is what I did, looked at the resource list (people on a list who want to be seen) and I called the first name I saw that said "on call" I asked the patient if he was in the area (I guess he is from Bountiful) and if he could get to the clinic within 20 minutes and that we could probably get some x-rays taken for him. He said he was on the road but He'd turn around and come on up. Wow, that was lucky! Well that phone call was made at like 25 after 9 and he arrived around 9:45. So I go look at his previous chart, made all the updates (which was somewhat time consuming) and got it signed. He needs 4 btws and a PA, I take them and SAVE them on the computer but when I went to pull it up in clinic nope, no x-rays found. CRAP. Well after some searching and digging by Mr. Solomon we came to find out my patients name was in the computer twice with his last name spelled almost identical but one letter differently. So I was pulling up the wrong one, which of course had no treatment record at all. Well good thing we checked the other one before I retook the x-rays, because the other name listing had them. So after that fiasco with the help of others I made a tx plan and checked him out. All in all I wasn't terribly late and things ended up working out, he is even coming back to get the cleaning done too! He was a very nice guy and very understanding of my slowness and heck he came in at spur of the moment so today I was LUCKY!