Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Level 3 Clinic

Bear with me while I stress about all things that are required of me in the next 6 months. I am by no means complaining, just making a list so that I can start to visually attack things.

 - 3 Minimal Cases ( 1 with Rads )
 - 2 Perio Cases ( Both with a FMX or Modified FMX ) No Panorex here, just old school PA's and     BW's which is so very time consuming...we're talking 18 pictures of your teeth in one sitting.
 - 2 Senior Cases ( 1 with Rads ) While I love my senior clients, they are by far my most reliable,    everything must be slowed down to their pace. And that pace is very, very slow.
 - 1 Child Case, between the ages of 6 - 11
 - 1 Adolescent Case, between the ages of 12 - 17 ( either adolescent or child with Rads )
 - 5 coronal polish
 - 2 air polish (this one is fun...I spray baking soda at very high speeds in your face)
 - 2 IntraOral Camera ( I like to do before and after pictures with the air polish for a 'wow'         effect to remind my clients why they committed to spending 6 - 24 hours with me in the first place )
 - 10 radiographs attempted, 7 of which need to receive a grade of 80%. Does that make sense? Just some background, if you make ONE mistake on one film, for example overlap or too mesial, or your obnoxious patient moved his big fat head, you get 60% which is a big fat FAIL. 
 - 2 Nutritional Evaluations. Client must keep a record of their diet for 5 days, I write a paper about it.
 - 2 Medical History Evaluations. In order to qualify, client must have a disease or condition and I ask them lots of personal questions about it. This one is tough, because often, our instructors feel that the client is not 'diseased' enough. Well I'm sorry that I don't have cancer patients with mitral valve relapse, diabetes mellitus or Paget's disease knocking at my door.  Although last semester, I was able to get an eval from a child who wet the bed. The teacher wanted to see my ethics in action. 
 - 2 Oral Hygiene Evaluations. Last week I signed up for an eval and barely passed because apparently I 'lost control of my client' because he was brushing too fast. I mean really, it's not like he started busting caps in people's asses. 
 - 2 impressions. Clients phone in and talk about what an impression I have left on them. Kidding. 1 sportsguard and 1 whitening tray. We're only just learning alginate right now and it is trickier than candy making. Spatulate, spatulate!
 - 5 UltraSonic and 5 Instrumentation tests. Must be done on a client with heavy deposit, you sign up that day, and if you're lucky, the instructor might feel like testing you. They did not feel like testing me today.
 - 4 Sealants. Please don't salivate when you get these done. 
 - 30 Deposit Removals. Someone like myself or Eve is 1 removal, Dad maybe 3, heavy smoker man who hasn't seen the dentist in a few years is a juicy 5 or 6. 
 - 1 six week re-eval. I convince you to come back in 6 weeks so I can nag you even more about flossing. 
 - 1 paper about a disease. Crohn's was taken, so I'm still undecided.
 - Out of all the clients I see, I choose one to make a 'case study' and do a big paper and presentation and study models for. I'm thinking of using this one client who has 3 decayed roots ( no crowns left! ), a denture she removes about every leap year, one premolar that's hanging on for dear life and a Class 3 furcation involvement. That is when so much gum and bone has been destroyed that you can see the space between the roots, it looks like a little window. French for window is fenetre, which is the root of furcation. I just say that to myself though, I'm not sure if it's actually true. 
 - 2 Long - Term goals, related to clinic, one of which is research based and one which is a personal goal, and we give bimonthly reports on our progress of said goals.  I think my personal goal will be to have a regular bowel movement schedule. 
 - 2 placements at either a Pedo, Perio or Ortho office, all of which have waiting lists.
 - 1 afternoon with school aged children nagging them to floss
 - 1 afternoon in the community talking about oral hygiene or denture care or sportsguards, something of that nature. I'm thinking about teaching the Firemen...

I think that's it for now. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Now come visit so I can clean your teeth!


2 comments:

Eve said...

holy smokes nawanalious, you have got some MAJOR work to do!!! this reminds me of BYU the first week when they would hand out the syllabus' in each class. It was always such an overwhelming week for me. Yours is even more difficult and you have to depend on other people in order for you to get your work done. That is hard. It was like that in hairschool too... only you have it 90 times worse by the sounds of it! Good luck nunu licious. Ithink you should make a sign and stand by a major streetlight wearing something saucy!
XOXO
Eve

Patience said...

I like Eve's idea for clients. Try it. And I also like to goal for regular bowl movements. I think I will make that my goal too.