Am I A Flirt or Just Friendly?

Well, I guess somebody thought I was a little flirty with Dr. Vanderbeek at the VA today.  I am a little embarrassed that the way I was talking to him was perceived as being flirty.  Sam tried to reassure me that I wasn't being flirty and I didn't think I was being flirty, but I will let you decided.  Dr. Vanderbeek came into do an exam on my AM patient.  He did a head and neck exam and tried to throw his gloves in the garbage can.  He missed.  I went around, picked them up, and put them in the trash.  The doctor told me I didn't need to get them and that he would have gotten them.  I said, "It's not like I'm doing any thing else."  Then I joked about him making my area messy.  I then made a comment about how I thought he would have been better at basketball given his height.  We joked back and forth for about 30 seconds and it was over.  I then proceeded to talk to my patient about his kids and where they go to school.  At the end of the day I find out my instructor asked Sam if I was married because I was being "flirty" with Dr. Vanderbeek.  Well, I guess if I get asked out by Dr. Vanderbeek next week at the VA we will know that I was being a little too friendly!  I will keep you posted if he does.

It is what it is.

I can't say more than that.  Last night at 5:45, my mock board patient canceled and I was left scrambling to find someone to fill his place.  I realize that he had a legitimate reason for not being able to come, but it still sucked.  The first person I called off of my list was willing to come.  He is such a sweet, old man!  I was so grateful for his willingness to come in within 14 hours of me calling him.  The unfortunate thing was that I hadn't looked to see if he had enough calculus to qualify for the board.  So, I was basically going into to it not knowing if my patient would qualify.  Prof. Alexander told me that the most important thing was to have a patient in my chair.  If they didn't qualify, then I would get 10 points below the lowest score in my group of students.  I was sure praying that everyone would do well, so that my score didn't go too low.  So, needless to say, he didn't qualify.  He was a class III with deep pockets and lots of supragingival calculus, but the subgingival calculus wasn't distinctive enough.  I had cleaned half of his mouth last week, and so I just cleaned the other 2 quadrants today.  I finished him in plenty of time before my check out time.  I had two small areas that I missed.  Prof. Alexander told me that I may have had my instrument too far into the interproximal area.  She came and watched me use more of the toe of the instrument to pop it off.   I got him finished up, he paid for the appointment, and I was free to clean up my room.  It is what it is because I couldn't change the fact that my other patient canceled and that my other one didn't qualify.  If this had been real boards, I would have been screwed royally.  But it was just for the experience and it was a good one.

The one thing that made me feel a little better, was Prof. Alexander came over and showed me what my score would have been had the calculus been more substantial.  I would have passed.  Like I said, that made me feel a LITTLE better.

While I was the student examiner, my group took a mock written LA exam.  I realized something that I needed to study was the brand names of the generic LAs.  I was really pleased with my score.  I got 45 out of 50.  I was able to (finally) schedule my written LA exam at Pearson VUE.  I am taking it this Monday at 6:45 pm.  I can't wait to have one of my exams out of the way.  I will have the next several days filled with studying and getting prepared.  I will take it and then start preparing for the national board.  It will give a little more than 2 weeks to prepare for that one.  Then 10 days later I take Process of Care.  It will be such a relief to have all of the exams that I have to study for over with by February 21st.  That will be a glorious day!

I Love Being CA

I know that some people really don't like being the CA, but I love it!  I really like Mr. Saloman and I think he likes me.  All day long he kept telling me what a great job I was doing.  He even asked if he could clone me.  I told him I didn't think my husband would like that very much.  I haven't been the CA at Weber since last spring and I loved being in the clinic with the girls I don't see as often.  I had a great day with you guys!  I hope I made clinic run smooth for you ladies.

My Thursday clinic was a pretty good day.  I had my first 1B of the semester.  I am still not as fast as I would like to be on simple cleanings.  I think my problem with him was that I kept going over and over certain areas because they felt rough.  Even Jen Wold checked some areas because they felt rough.  She came to the conclusion that it was just his dentition.  I now have 22 sets of bite-wing x-rays and 40 PAs.  I just need to have my parents come in for a full mouth series and I will be close with my PAs.  My afternoon patient was a class III in 3 quadrants and a class IV in the other.  Lots of calculus.  I used my triple bend and actually liked it today.  I have had bad experiences in the past, but it just reminded me that I need to keep trying something again and again.  This gentleman had several areas of 7, 8, and 9 mm pockets.  I didn't have any missed areas in the half of his mouth that I cleaned.  I felt really good about that.  Jen told me there was just a little bit of deposit supragingival on the distal line angle of 29.  I got in there, got it off, and half of his mouth was clean.  I also have 21 quadrants of a class III/IV.  They keep saying that the class IV patients will come.  I sure hope so because I still need an eaglesoft patient.

On Friday, I showed up at 8 am to do a screening on a patient that might qualify for boards.  Her appointment was at 8:30 am.  8:50 rolled around and she still hadn't shown up.  Mr. Saloman called her for me to find out that she had forgotten about the appointment.  I have her scheduled for Jan. 26th to do a screening.  I sure hope that she comes.  Looking at x-rays from a year ago, she has many spots of radiographic calculus that were never scaled by my peer pal.  If she doesn't qualify, I am going to be a little more stressed.  Needless to say, I showed up at 8 am for no reason.  I could have slept in a little.  Darn!  I did help the other girls by making charts and cleaning rooms, so it at least counts as service hours.

What a Way to Start...

I really feel like I had a good day for my first day back after Christmas break.  I got 8 quads of a class V and two quads of a class III and I got 6 injections!!!  WAHOO!  Our instructor at the VA is this nice girl that is 3 years younger than me, a little weird, and she told me that I did great with my injections.  That makes me feel really good since the last few times I have given injections, Hanson and Alexander have told me that I go way to fast and that I need to slow down.  Katie, the new instructor, did say to speed up my rate of deposition.  I guess I went from one extreme to the other.  Oh well.  At least I was getting some positive info about how I did on my injections.  I would have been perfect on my IA except that I forgot to move the syringe over the premolars.  Other than that, I was gold!  Here is to hoping for a great semester.  Now I just need to find my mock board patient for two weeks away and hopefully a board patient!  Cross your fingers for all of us girls that still need to find these patients.