Ethics

I really enjoyed this ethics project. We picked a fantastic detnal hygienist to interview. She was more than willing to give us multiple senerios that she has encountered over her 28 year carreer to discuss with our class. She was very enthusiastic about her job and was even willing to help use find board patients when the time came. I learned alot from my class mates projects and it brought up a lot of good senerios we may encounter in our hygiene carreer. I hope this project continues for years to come because it opened up a lot of good information that we can use in our practices.

GPG Rotation

I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed my GPG rotations. I became great friends with one of the junior dental students during my time there. She would find me in the morning or text me if she had an interesting case that she needed help with. I believe it is important to make friends with the upper classman because when you need help finding a board patient they will be sure to keep you in mind, same goes for if she needs a board patient. She will be the first one I will call if I find a patient with restorative needs. I was able to assist in several procedures" mainly fillings" but I learned a lot about why certain fillings are placed. I can now relay the information to my patients if they ask for my opinion on them. I was able to perform some cleanings but mainly assist. Which was fine with me since I was an assitant prior to hygiene school.

Difficult Patients

Last week I had to deal with a difficult patient for the first time. He was extremely rude to me from the start due to mis-communication with scheduling. Thankfully I have wonderful class mates who came to my rescue when they overheard the way he was speaking to me. I tried my hardest to make him understand what had happened and that it was school policy to update his medical history, but he didn't want to hear anything I said to him. I thought if I encountered this situation I would be able to handle it on my own, but being put in that situation it made it clear to me that we need to discuss how to deal with unhappy patients.After giving myself a few days to cool off about the situation I spoke with Mrs. Casella about it. She gave me great advice that I think needs to be told to all students. "If a patient refuses to go over their medical history with you and speaks to you in an aggressive or aggravated manner you should get faculty if reasoning with them does not work. She said the patients need to understand that when they sign to be a patient at the school you accept that you are going to be in the chair for three hours and that we are here to learn. It's the law that we take vitals and update the medical history every time they sit in our chair, even if you saw them the day before. She also stated that" if they don't comply with the updates then they should be dismissed from the school." I will not let this patient defeat me so I made sure to schedule him with me in the next few weeks. I now have a better understanding on how to deal with these types of patients and will be better prepared for the next one.

Perio Rotation

I had so much fun on my perio rotation last week. I was able to assist with the placement of two implants. The resident I worked with taught me a lot about the different nerves of the face and the innervations. This is very important while placing an implant so you don't hit those nerves. He flappped the patients gingiva down to the mental foramen. That was really interesting to see.  I was able to assist him in taking PA's that they were having problems with getting the end of the implant. Go me I was able to get it on the first try. I hope there will be other opportunities for me to go and assist in the perio clinic. I feel like I learn the most there.

Rally Day

I thoroughly enjoyed going to the capital. Even though I have lived near Richmond my whole life I had never taken the opportunity to take a tour of the capital. It was a very interesting when we went into the gallery to watch what was going on down stairs and how they voted for certain bills. I also enjoyed speaking with my county Representative. It was great to hear that one of the bills we were trying to get passed had gone through just days before. Now that I know more about the capital I plan on returning for another visit very soon to see if our other bill will be approved. I hope so because that means there will be more jobs for dental hygienists in the Richmond area.