We Left The VA Before 3 PM!!!!

Oh, today was such a wonderful day!  I had two patients in the morning and none in the afternoon.  I had 4 quads of a class V, a pano, BWX, 2 PAs, passed off the subgingival irrigation PE, and placed Arestin.  On top of everything I have hooked my 4 VA buddies on crocheting.  I spent part of our lunch teaching them how to crochet.  What a wonderful hobby I have them "hooked" on.  Do you get it?  Hooked?  Crochet hook.  Oh, never mind!  Lame attempt at being funny.  I had a terrible headache after lunch, so I was more than happy to not have a patient in the afternoon.  My four friends did a great job of getting finished with their patients super early.  So, I just played the role of clinical assistant in the afternoon and got everyone's rooms cleaned so that we could go home.  We were out of there before 3 pm and home by 3:35!  Now this day has set the standard of what we are going to shoot for every VA day.  Our group also has only 2 VA days left!  You bet I am counting down!  I can't wait to not have to leave at 6:45 in the morning to be down there by 7:30.  I will never work in an office in SLC.  I love the convenience of working close to home.  Let's just hope one of the dentists by me is hiring in May.  Something I learned from today was that I need to take advantage of my air.  I have gotten out of the habit of using my air to check for supragingival calculus.  I missed one tiny spot on the straight lingual of 25.  I must remember to do that especially with boards coming up in about 2 weeks!  YIKES!

An Interesting Week

This week started out a little bizarre.  Early Sunday morning I had a grand mal seizure that landed me in the ER for about 4 hours.  I got a new cell phone on Saturday and obviously spent too much time playing it through out the day.  Just second after turning off the light at 12:15 Sunday morning I went into my seizure.  I have been fine since except for my short term memory.  I still had to take the Process of Care exam on Tuesday.  I was ever so grateful that I had already taken the national board.  I don't think I remember anything that I studied for that exam.  When I entered the testing center on Tuesday, I put my license in my right back pocket of my jeans.  When I left the testing center I don't remember what I did with my license.  It may have fallen out of my pocket for all I know.  But it is officially gone.  I called the testing center and they don't have it.  I didn't even realize it was gone until the next day buying tickets to a movie.  So, I will be going to the DLD tomorrow to get a new drivers license.

This week was also our third and final mock board.  I was a little nervous because it has been more than a week since I have scaled and I had a seizure during that time.  I just prayed that I remembered what I was doing.  I was unable to confirm my patient.  She is a Midtown patient and speaks mostly Spanish.  I left her a message, but she never returned my call.  Thank heaven she was in the afternoon, because that gave me the opportunity to talk to Midtown and she had been in the day before and remembered that she was coming in to see me.  WaHoo!

She showed up and I was able to convince her to let me get her numb.  I was so thankful!  She was wonderful to work on.  I felt like things were going really well.  Then I hear Michelle, right across from me say, "I am going to let you have a little break and then I will check again."  Perfect!  I will do the same.  I scaled a little longer, then allowed my fingers to have a break.  When I got back in her mouth, I found a huge chunk of calculus that I hadn't felt before.  I was so glad for Michelle's reminder to let my hands have a break.  I would have missed an area otherwise.  I had a very good mockboard experience.  I only missed one probe depth.  It made me realize that I need to make sure my angulation on my probe isn't too shallow, which can lead to a false reading.  I will do better next time.  But I got a 98.75%!  Can't complain about that!

Also, Mr. Salomon finally got a hold of my board patient.  He scheduled her for next Thursday so that I can clean the right half of her mouth.  I already had a patient scheduled there, but this woman is my priority until after boards.  I only have two clinic days before board week, and I want to see her so that I can confirm my Board time with her and get her permission ahead of time to get her numb.  Here's to hoping that I pass my local anesthesia board so that I can get her numb!

Oh How I Hope Brooke is Right

Thank you for your kind words, Brooke!  I really needed that.  Right now I feel so inadequate and afraid that I am not going to do well.  I keep wondering if it possible for someone who has as much training as me to fail every single board exam!  I have to keep those thoughts out of my head.  I have got to stay positive.  I do hope that my brain will be able to select the most accurate answer.  I have this constant pit in my stomach and I feel like I want to cry all the time.  I just can't wait for it to be over.  It will be such a relief to know that I have one more down and only 3 to go.  I know that we all are going to amazing!  We are amazing people and we work with the best, so how could we not pass, right?  I have prepared my whole life for this!  Let's get this bad boy over with.  I am not studying any more for the National Board.  I know that nothing will stick at this point any way!  So, why waste my time?  I am going to have a nice evening.  The boys are sleeping over at their cousins house.  I am going to do something I haven't done in a long time.  Lay back and enjoy a movie!  Pass the popcorn, please!

At least I learned something

Today was LA mock board.  Everything went fine.  I passed my IA injection, but failed the PSA.  This was the advice that I received.  According to Prof. Alexander, my angles for the PSA were spot on, text book perfect!  That was the great news.  Next came the bad news.  I was too posterior, which meant that I wasn't in the buccal mucosa.  If I had just come forward a little more, I would have passed.  Next time I do a PSA I will practice on the right to see if I feel more comfortable with that.  All of the instructors said they did a left IA and right PSA.  I may need to do that.  I wanted to keep the anesthesia on one side of my patients mouth.  It is more important that I pass than only numb only the right or left side.  She also advised my on being a little too high on the IA and I needed to insert my needle a little more.  My patient was great!  She had wonderful anatomy for injections.  She told me that in her opinion, I did a great job and that the injections didn't even hurt.  I felt like it was a really good experience and so grateful that my instructors allow us that opportunity to learn.

I also had an interesting afternoon.  My patient was a 16 year old girl.  I was hoping that her mother would be cool with me doing a pano.  I just needed one more conventional pano to complete that requirement.  Mom said that was fine, but she wanted me to take bitewings as well.  I told her that she really didn't need them since it hadn't been a year since the last ones were taken, but she really wanted to have them taken.  I find the right pano film and get two loaded into the pano sleeve, put the lead apron on my patient and take the panos.  Once they are developed, I realize the huge mistake I have made.  I had the thyroid collar around her neck and it showed up in the film, blocking out most of her lower anteriors.  I load what I think is another two pano films into the sleeve and take the x-ray.  I go to develop them and find that I have put 3 panos inside the sleeve!  I couldn't believe it.  Just doing the x-rays took me nearly 45 to an hour.  I was so frustrated with myself.  The first pano came out and I couldn't see which side was left or right.  Next one came out, perfect.  Third one came out, too light!  The first two will do just fine, thank you very much.  I learned something today.  So.... that makes it a good day.  Now I need to study for the next 6 hours and another 5 hours tomorrow to prepare the national board that I am taking on Saturday.  I hope that it isn't a mistake taking it so soon.  I feel so unprepared, but I am hoping that I will feel better tomorrow.  I vow that I am not going to study from 2 pm Friday afternoon on.

Wish me luck!!!!

Odds and Ends

I do have some good news.  I found a board patient!  I am so relieved by this.  That was something that I was really worrying about and to know that she is reliable.  She came in the last clinic day of January.  My peer pal cleaned her upper right quad for her board and passed with 100%.  The left side of her mouth was left incomplete.  This was good for me.  Her upper left quad has at least 10 solid clicks and I will add #18 and 19 to fulfill the last couple of clicks.  She doesn't speak English, but if my peer pal could do it, so can I.  I will also be cleaning the rest of her mouth for requirements.  She is a class III!  Right now I have 30 quads of a class III, so I am getting close with my requirements there.  I thought I was going to have a mockboard patient, but the guy won't get back with me.  He canceled the night before the last mockboard due to family issues, which I understand.  Well, I thought he would have been willing to come in for this last one.  I just wish he would let me know either way.  That way I know if I need to start calling people for screenings on Friday.

I have a couple of stresses on my mind right now.  This Thursday we have our local anesthesia mock board.  At the end of clinic on Thursday we talked about what is expected for LA mockboard.  I went home sweating out of sheer terror!  I haven't given injections since my first VA day back from Christmas.  I will review the injections, depths, penetration sites and what to say.  Hopefully all goes well.

I am also taking my national board this Saturday.  I have just spent today studying for 6 1/2 hours.  Am I finished studying for the day, you ask?  Oh, no I am not.  I will probably hit the books for a couple more hours tonight.  I did feel good after my study session today, though.  I hope that I continue to feel more and more confident over the next couple of days.

My husband asked me tonight if it was a prerequisite for getting into the dental hygiene program to have a lack of confidence and constantly question my abilities.  I told him yes, because I know that each of us has uncertainties and questions ourselves.  Maybe during the interview process, they could smell it on us.  I know that I tried to come off as confident, but maybe I wasn't confident at all and that was just what they were looking for.  An insecure person lacking self confidence.  All fingers point to me!