Another day down in clinic. The ony great thing about today was both my patients needed injections. The bad thing about today if it would have been boards I would have failed my injections. My syringe was not over the premolars on my IA. If I don't pass all my boards I will probably crawl in a hole and never come out. I take my first board next Wednesday. They say no one fails National Boards, how stupid will I feel if I fail. Other than the fear and stress of boards I love dental hygiene and love the patients, every day is a new experience and I feel I am learning so much with every experience.

Injections

My husband came in today so I could practice injections on him (what a sport). He is my LA board patient so in another month he will let me to it to him again. He should get husband of the year for this sacrifice. I guess I did okay on his injections with a lot of coaching from Prof. Perry.

My afternoon pt I did injections on as well, I did okay on her IA but, on her PSA Prof. Perry said I did a great infiltration on her second molar, my 45* angle was off. I hope I get many more patients before boards to practice injections on.

2nd MockBoard

Well I failed my second mockboard today, but looking on the positive side my score was 27 points higher than last time, so if I can continue to increase on each exam I should pass boards with flying colors.
Today started out as a nightmare. My patient cancelled 5 minutes after she should have arrived. I finally got someone in an hour late. My scale time was cut about 40 minutes and I was so flustered and shaky. When I gave my injection I was shaking so much from all the adrenaline pumping through my veins. I finally calmed down and began cleaning. My patient bleed like crazy and unfortunately the time I had to clean went way to fast and I didn't get the time I really needed to take a breather and go back in and feel with my explorer.
Even though I failed today I am very happy I got a patient in my chair and I got the experience again to clean someone that has very hard tenacious calculus. Even though I have seen class III's and IV' since the last mockboard I don't feel any of them have had the hard calculus like these patients have had.
I am looking forward to the next mockboard and hope I can get better and my patient will not cancel or be late.

I was really nervous to go back to the VA after a long Christmas break, but it went well. I had two patients that were class V. They were both very nice and made the day go fast and it was fun. Today I saw my special needs patient, I gave her Nitrous Oxide, I wasn't planning on doing it so I hadn't reviewed my PE so I was bummed I couldn't pass it off because I needed help remembering how to turn it on. She was a great patient and seemed very relaxed to be on nitrous compared to last time when she was very jumpy.

Spring Semester Senior Year

Today is our first day of clinic of our final semester until we graduate! We are learning taleval before our patients show up. Today I have a 1A and class 4 scheduled I hope to start this semester out right both my patients show up and I can remember how to do everything. So far this semester I am feeling a little overwhelmed with signing up for boards and feeling like I have so much to still study and I am very worried about clinicals because I have only done injections on one patient.

One more final to go I am so looking forward to Christmas break. It will be nice to study for boards without having to worry about all my other courses. I haven't done so well on my finals other than Human Sexuality because my professor didn't feel like writing a final so she gave all of us 100%. I did pretty bad on Professor Alexanders final. I studied really hard but her questions didn't really come from her powerpoints or what we learned in class so I don't know what I could have done any better other than be a hygienist that has been practicing for several years and it is just common sense to me. I just hope everyone else struggles as well and she raises all the scores.

Last clinic day

Had our last clinic day but due to the fake big storm we sent our afternoon patients home early. I wish I would have had about 30 more minutes with my patient to get x-rays and probe depths to know what class he was for next semester. Oh well can't complain to much about a really long Thanksgiving break.