Blur And No Sleep

The last two weeks has been a total blur. I suppose in a way that's a good thing. Only 15 more weeks this semester! :-) hahahaha

Every single class period, every single day, we have a quiz (except radiology lab...but its very hands on, and I'm sure we will soon...or its pass/fail...I'm not sure yet about that class its only once a week). It is extremely nerve wracking to have these quizzes all the time, but I suppose with the amount of information we cover it is the only way to make sure we are keeping up and understanding the material.

I got a 95 on my tooth drawing. I didn't put the forming cells of one tooth material, the direction of growth of cementum, and the proportions weren't accurate enough (guess I'll trace next time!).

I got a 93% on my infection control test! It was the second highest of the group of girls I talk with a lot (the ones that also took the summer chemistry class with me plus two more). Not a bad way to start!

I'm still extremely stressed about finding patients for cleanings in January through March. I have Roby (that we are going to pay for), one yes, and two maybes. Steph suggested putting up fliers on base to get people to come. All military people have to go to the base clinic, but I could recruit spouses that might not like their current care or who don't have any care yet. I dunno, but I need to figure something out!

The other day we had to turn in an assignment on taking peoples vitals. We had to take them on people in various age groups. I had one age group covered (by using Roby). I could have walked my neighborhood to find other age groups... I asked around in my class if they had anyone I could "borrow" for the assignment. One gal laughed and said, "Come on over, my husbands grandma is visiting!" So I used her for one age group and borrowed her mother-in-law for practice and "Nana" who was very sweet!!! :-)

We had our first procedure tests yesterday. They were for "hand-washing," "vitals," and "cleaning and putting up barriers." These things all seem very simple, but when you have 30 things on a sheet of paper that MUST be done for each one and your instructor looking over your shoulder every step of the way...its quite scary! I passed all of them! :-) I was very happy about that! I get very worked up over all this stuff! If we miss two things on any of the process we would fail it. If we fail a process, we have three "make-up" days in which we have to redo them. If we do that, TWO instructors evaluate you! NO ONE wants that!

Yesterday we also used our (sterilized) mirror in each others mouths for the first time! It feels quite awkward, and a little scary...but once I get over the initial shock of it, I'm sure it will be fine. (That and my patient/peer is 7 months pregnant, so I was concerned about her laying back...I still don't know how she plans on doing this program with a newborn!)

And for your viewing pleasure today, a picture of my station all cleaned and with barriers on! :-)

And a pic from the other side so you can see about 1/3 of the clinic floor.
(Two of the girls in my class were practicing taking vitals.)

I was talking to a girl today about how we have 15 weeks left in this semester. Because we start seeing patients at the end of January, she mentioned that in reality, they teach us how to be dental hygienists in one semester. The rest of the two years is pretty much how to fine tune our skills, learn about more detailed information, laws, and all kinds of other stuff we don't HAVE to know to work on simple cases. SUPER! That doesn't help the stress level at all! :-)

Did I mention yet that I go to bed between 11:30 and 12:30 every night (morning) and get up at 5am??? That's the "No Sleep" portion of this post! hahaha