Kim's Blog

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Okay today was a humbling experience. I came in to screen a patient for mockboards, but he ended up being a class 1b that turned into a class 2. So He had to hurry and leave so I felt really rushed and tried to go as fast as I could. He was really sensitive when I used the utra sonic so I would just skip over that tooth and try to go back, but he was still sensitive. When it came time for the scale check I missed like 10 spots on the mesial and distal. He had to leave so I have to bring him back for that.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Pt no show number one million! So today the patient I thought that I could use for mockboard did not show again...so he is out the question. I need to find a mock board patient. I have two people to screen and hopefully they will work. Last week was my last week at the VA. I had one of the hardest patients yet. He could not open his mouth and it was really tricky. It was a very good experience but pretty difficult. I used the bite block which was great. Also, I was scaling on #15fm and there was this huge mass of what looked like a mix between plaque, calculus, and a temporary restoration. It was yellow. So I started scraping it with my explorer and it was coming off very easily. I went at it with my ultrasonic and it was like 3 mm thick. Underneath it was a huge hole on #15m. The doctor said a filling must have fallen out. It was a bizzare peice of buildup. But, I remembered If it comes off that easily with an explorer even an instrument then it shouldn't be on there anyway if it was some type of restoration.
Today I forgot what ohi aids I could give to an implant patient. I need to remember to look those up, but I did learn that an implant is held in place by osteo integration. It is kind of like it is ankylosed to the bone.
For scaling I have really been trying to work on adapting the toe to the tooth. There are still some spots that I struggle with, especially when I have to use indirect vision. #27 dl and #6 dL. They are like the two hardest areas I have instrumenting. I need to work on my indirect vision and at the same time keep my terminal shank aligned with the tooth.