Hello everyone!

Ah… yesterday I did my first comprehensive exam on a classmate. How nerve-wrecking!!! If you don’t know what a complete comprehensive dental exam is- it includes:

1. a review of the patient’s medical history about past surgeries, systemic problems, medications, allergies, and so on.

2. an extra-oral exam – this is where we take a look at your physical features and we check all your head and neck lymph nodes – this is a huge part of oral cancer screening — seeing if you have abnormal size lymph nodes

3. we then proceed into an intra-oral exam – where we look at the inside of your oral cavity: are your salivary glands working, do you have any indications of habitually chewing your cheek, grinding your teeth, do you brush your tongue, do you have your tonsils, etc…

4. Then we take a look at your radiographs for bone loss and see the overall status of your teeth

5. Then we measure your periodontal depths of your teeth to see if you have good pockets between your teeth and your gingiva…

and man – that’s a lot!! Well, despite how slow I was and how nervous I was- I did well and now I’m excited to do it again.

Yesterday- the American Student Dental Association ASDOH Chapter did its first all-chapter community service event – we packed shoe boxes with school supplies, oral & general hygiene products, and small toys for underprivileged children. We also made a guide with images on how to properly brush and floss teeth!

And now… we are on Thanksgiving break. This break was very much needed. After break- we will be learning how to make dentures! I’m super excited. In less than 6 months we are going to be in clinic working on patients…. making dentures, doing root canals, restoring teeth, doing cleanings… how exciting!!!

Well, happy thanksgiving everyone!

Hello Everyone,

It’s been a while since my last post. I’m sorry. School has definitely been busy. Hmm… Where to start?

Well, Radiology was a lot of fun. Took my radiology competency exam and did well. Made a couple boo boos. But the important thing is that you are able to identify where/what those boo boos are bc then you can go back and look at how you are placing the films in a patient’s mouth to identify how you can do it next time to achieve the ideal radiographs.

Endodontics has been the module of interest in the past 2 weeks. Some people may think root canals are boring, but for me – it was a lot of fun. I started with a molar with 3 canals… it was very exciting when I completed all 3 canals! It was a very relaxing environment. All we did was root canals for 8 days… it was fun. Every tooth I did had a different canal or different set of canals… I even found a fourth canal in a molar!

We started fixed partial dentures earlier this week. It has been a while since we have done any crown preps (this is where we cut/shape a tooth with a handpiece (drill) to the right dimensions so that it can ideally hold a crown without fracturing or falling out. It was fun to do crown preps again.

We started our Lasers module yesterday. It’s amazing how the advancement of technology is benefiting the field of dentistry so rapidly. The purpose of laser dentistry is using lasers to do things such as remove soft tissue in the mouth without bleeding, removal of lesions without bleedings, etc. It’s really cool.

My class social chairs organized a Thxgiving Potluck tonight. I really like how our class spends the holidays together and we have fun together. I’m excited for all the food!!!

This is just a brief overview of what I’ve been up to, but maybe I’ll have some time to write more – especially about our clinic orientation module- now that’s a course with lots of stories! I’ll write more.

Have an awesome day!

Just got back from radiology. I was super proud of myself. I only had trouble with two places in the mouth.

I’m really glad my mentor Nevin let me shadow her in the radiology lab last year. She taught me how to put sensors and instruments together as well as place the instruments in the patient’s mouth. So I felt prepared going into radiology today. To be honest, I was relieved that I wasn’t having as much trouble as I was anticipating. Lately- I’ve been having so much trouble in sim lab with my daily assignments… it gets discouraging, but when I completed radiology today- I felt so relieved…

You know, there are different types of learning curves. For me, I always feel like I’m the only one behind. I feel like I’m the slowest one too. Even though deep down I know I am not alone… I can’t help but feel it. The trick in not letting these feelings and thoughts discourage you from succeeding is perseverance.

We are in fixed prosthodontics right now. We’re learning about provisionals, crowns, etc. And there is such a huge learning curve for me personally. I was still trying to finish day 1 assignments on day 3. So I felt really discouraged. It’s days like those that define your passion for dentistry as well as define your strength. It has a lot to do with your mindset and a lot to do with perseverance.

There will be days… tons of days… where you feel overwhelmed and thoughts of failing or being incompetent flood your mind. It’s okay. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed… you need to find the strength to remember that you are in dental school… that wise people (admissions committee) selected you- they saw potential in you. And you’re in school – you’re learning- you’re not supposed to know everything already. So when you get to dental school and experience these so-called bad days that I described above- just take a breath. look around. and tell yourself that you can do it. tell yourself that it’s going to be okay… maybe even great (i dare you to say THAT to yourself!)

My name is Mai-Ly. I’m a 2nd year ASDOH student. I am the D2 Class President of the Class of 2012!! I am involved in ASDA and Student Ambassadors. I graduated from the University of Arizona and grew up in the NW Phoenix area. I sing and act on my leisure time. I am very involved in the Asian American community as well as the Vietnamese community in Arizona.

If you’re reading, please feel free to comment and introduce yourself – I’d love to virtually meet you!

Now, to the good stuff. You wanna know about my life as a dental student, right?! Well, since I don’t really know where to start, I will just start with my life today – Sept. 10, 2009!

Today, we were in Clinic Orientation II. This module is about teaching us and helping us transition into the dental clinic. We have been in the similation clinic since last March working on mannequinnes- however using instruments and doing procedures on an actual human being is quite different!

Today, we learned about the Sickle instruments. These instruments are used to scale and remove plaque and calculus above the gingiva… There are other uses, but removing calculus supragingivally is the main purpose. Today was also the 3rd or 4th time that we’ve actually been working on each other… sticking instruments into each other’s mouths. Sounds kind of vulgar if I say it like that though.

Anyways, it is fun. It is kind of scary at first. I remember when I use an explorer in one of my classmate’s mouth for the first time. I was so scared I would hurt her. I was so scared I would make her gums bleed that I didn’t really practice. However, the key to maximizing your total experience in dental school is having empathy and having guts. We are all in dental school together. How do we know how to do things correctly if we don’t do them incorrectly the first time? How do we know if we are hurting someone if we don’t hurt someone first? How do we know how to maneuver an instrument or a mirror in a mouth with a big tongue if we don’t practice? As dental students in this Clinic Orientation II environment – we have the opportunity to practice on each other and give each feedback. We have to know that it’s okay to accidentally poke someone. It’s okay to put too much pressure on the cheek. If we don’t do it, we’ll never know the thresholds of how much we can and can’t do that will be uncomfortable for our patients. Anyways, today I realized that it was okay if I pressed too hard or if I accidentally poked too much – I trust my classmates to give me constructive feedback and I trust that they won’t be mad at me. Otherwise, if I don’t trust them to give me feedback to better my skills – how will they trust me to give them feedback to better their skills?

Right now- we are in simulation lab. We are in our Operative II module, where we refresh the skills we learned last year in Operative I. I also have Radiology rotation later this afternoon, where I start receiving hands-on experience in taking X-rays. I’m excited!

Tomorrow we have our Pharm I final. Now that class is super interesting because you learn about different medications that your future patients will take and how those medications will affect your ability to treat your patients… However it is also super hard!!!

So I better ta-ta for now because I have to get my classwork done so I can go home to a night full of Pharmocology fun and macaroni and cheese! teehee…

talk to you later!!!