Hope you are doing well...well why aren't you?? It's finally the weekend !!!!!! Ugh I worship my weekends cause it means I can finally spend some lazy time at home with my loved ones and eat home cooked meal and not having to rush here and there <3 Hope you appreciate your weekends as much as I do !
Anyhow, I've noticed that I've been posting more about my wedding and hence have decided to spill in some updates on my progress in dental school as well. Life is after all about balance. I don't want to come out as someone who's obsessed about getting married....cause I'm not. I'm just excited, (and nervous of course :3). I've said it many times and I will say it again.. marriage is not just about the wedding, it's a lifetime, so I prefer to focus more on the lifetime part of the marriage and not put my heart and soul on the wedding itself. But you know, whatever that floats your boat. My idea of a perfect wedding is an intimate, simple but tasteful wedding attended by only relatives and close friends, people interacting and laughing over old stories, with no protocol and the whole shebang of a grand wedding, basically where everyone is having a good time. Okay this is getting out of topic....LOL
BACK ON TRACK HERE:
You know there's this famous tagline that goes "KEEP CALM CAUSE I'M A (fill in the blank)"? I came across one that said "Keep calm cause I'm a half dentist" through a classmate's desktop picture and got really interested with it because
One: I am halfway to finishing my degree..there but not THERE yet!
Two: It's like saying I can treat you but won't promise it'll be perfect (but fret not, I am competent enough)
Three: It's also a good reason to give IF I make mistakes ;D
Like say, the other day my oral surgery lecturer asked me a question and I gave a completely vague answer.. just before he gunned me with remarks like "come on, how come you don't know this..you're already treating patients!" I quickly let out "Dr., I'm only a half dentist" and just then I saw what I thought to be a laugh which later turned into a snort LOL! Phewh, glad that he found it amusing! So basically that tagline saved my ass. Have to try it on other lecturers too! K no maybe I just should buck up and not forget what I regurgitate.
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| My best friend (Kathryna) and I after her first dental checkup with me. |
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| My clinic partner (Marwan) and I testing out the new OPG machine. |
Now that I'm in my last semester as a 3rd year dental student, and freakin 38 days away from my 3rd professional exam..I guess I've grown and developed a lot in terms of clinical skills, hands-on experience seriously propels you into amazing heights. I remember when I started clinics I was so nervous in giving patients intraoral LA injections (where we numb you up before certain procedures), up to the point where I was literally shaking and had difficulty in fixing the needle to the syringe! Now that I have no problems in giving injections anymore (alhamdulillah), looking back, all you need is experience. Experience is GOLD when it comes to treating patients. You learn a lot more and at a faster rate through clinical experience.
Some MAJOR differences between clinics and pre-clinical sim lab:
- Patients can move, so you have to be extra careful with all things sharp & dangerous.
- Patients have gums.. that BLEED! Mannequins don't. Need to take extra care not to cut someone's gums when doing a class II. Can't even put in a wedge without making them gums bleed like cray ;(
- You only have 2 hands.. and as soon as they go in the patient mouth they're "dirty". Maintaining sterile technique is a bit of an internal organizational battle. Taking gloves on and off, rummaging through "clean" drawers, etc..
- Patients have saliva.. and you don't want to drown your patient.
- No one has frasaco teeth.
- Patients are real people! Real people with real feelings, real fears, real pain, and real questions.
Having said that, I still can't believe that I've done multiple composite restorations under rubber dam isolation, multiple LA injections, replacing old/faulty restorations, taken multiple successful radiographs, scaling & polishing, planning treatments, scheduling appointments, for ACTUAL LIVING, BREATHING PEOPLE!!! I have yet to do extractions & dentures though.
Will be doing my first extraction next Wednesday, hoping it'll turn out well in sya Allah. Then I can call up my first complete denture patients. Baby steps.
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Till then, half dentist will be graduating to a three-quarter dentist in a few months' time.
xx
Good luck kak Jasmine!! :)
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