Monday, January 30, 2006

Am I going to get my requirements?

Okay, So today was kinda not so good. My patient came in late. While waiting I was able to evaluate my x-rays from last week. She told me she'd be in at 8:30 and didn't get in until 9 because she thought we were still in building 3. That was a long time ago. None the less, she was really nice and liked to talk a lot, which kinda slowed things down even more. She had a plethura of medications and I think she was taking even more than she put down. Anyhow, by the time we got that all done it was 10:00 and I only had 45 min to get anything done. So, I did 4 BWX and called it a day. I don't even know what class she is. I didn't do extra or intra, nothing. I'm really worried that I won't be able to get my quads done for my requirements if I'm having to bring them back every time. She is rescheduled for March 6, so luckily I'll have the HHX out of the way and hopefully I can finish! At least I learned a valuable lesson that I will implement into my future appointments.

*If I don't know the patient, Call and do their HHX over the phone!

So that's my goal. No matter what; if I know the patient or not, I WILL get the HHX done before they come into the clinic.
Also, today I copied a sequence for appintments from Loni, I think it will be really helpful. I just feel extremly unefficient (is that a word?) in my appointments. When I did my friend last wednesday I felt a lot better and things went very smooth. But today, not so much. I want to be organized and transition smoothly and quickly onto the next step of the tx. Oh, that will be the day!

Monday, January 23, 2006

I've got to get faster!

Today was the first day I worked on a patient that I didn't know. I don't know if I liked doing that so much. First of all, luckily she had pretty good teeth. She flossed daily and brushed at least once a day, so her gums were relatively tight. A couple 4's but mostly 1-3mm upon probing and not to much bleeding. She was a smoker, so that affects how her tissues heal, but the teeth weren't nasty. She said she didn't think she'd ever had a cleaning in her life, which I could belive because she had quite a bit of calculus. She ended up as a class 2 with Generalized marginal gingivitis with localized perio. I still need to review her x--rays.
Second, she was extremely patient, or at least was trying to be. I hate that I'm so slow. Joelle got her patient done from start to finish today. I struggle to get to the OD. Especially with x-rays. I guess it's better because last week I didn't do x-rays and only got the the OD, but today I did them and did got to the OD as well. None the less, it's frusterating. I want things to be clear in my head as to what I do next. I always have to stop and say, okay, now what comes next. I just want everything to flow. I guess it will only come with time and practice.
One good thing about today was I did an explorer PE, so I got one of those out of the way. Until next time...

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Another day down

Today I worked on my sister. She was a class 1B. I only got to OHI. Except I forgot what I was doing and disclosed before I did anything so I moved OHI up in the appointment to first thing and then had her brush and finished with OD. If was good. She has some calc that I'm going to reschedule her for to come get cleaned off. I just really feel like I'm so slow and I still don't know what all the terms mean when I'm supposed to record them in the chart. I always forget and then I'm asked well whats the difference between this and that term and I just go blank...I hate when that happens. I need to do better at vocabulary.

Such is life, I'm married now, so who the heck cares right? :) Pretty sure I do!

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

The semester begins...

Today I worked on my dad again. He came back for round two. I was really nervous because we've been on break for a month so I kept forgeting stuff, but luckily we all survived. My dad was a class 2. I had a chance to scale him so that was nice. First day back and I'm scaling! Prof. Costly said I did really well for my first patient ever scaling and it being a class 2. Hopefully I did. It took a long time to get scale checks however, so I wasn't able to polish or do flouride. RESCHEDULE.