So 8 months into dental school it's finally starting to feel like dental school. Not what I expected when I started. I knew there would be a lot of coursework the first year, but I don't think I was quite prepared for how unprepared I would be for dental school. Having not really had a full schedule of course work since 2007 I knew it would be a big transition back into the classroom. However, this hasn't been a problem. Studying can get tedious, but I have done much better in the didactic portion of the program than I anticipated. What I have struggled with is being out of patient care. I have found myself missing my patients and the daily interaction in a real office more and more.
Thankfully we have finally started some things that actually feel like they may be useful in my chosen field. Not that memorizing all of the specific nuclei and nerve synapses in the brain isn't fun, but even if I did memorize the ridiculous names its hard to see where it would come in handy. While I've spent a lot of time working in the dental office the closest I've come to doing the work of a dentist is playing with the Play-Doh set my sister in law and brother in law gave me for Christmas a few years ago.
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| Previous Dental Experience (40 hours as listed on dental school application) |
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Now that we've gotten such crucial background knowledge established (such as which specific liver enzymes metabolize each different pharmaceutical) we have been endowed with the honor to advance forward and start placing real fillings. Now don't get too excited. It's not all that different from working on Mr. Play-Doh mustache. We have a set of plastic teeth mounted into a plastic mouth, which is set into a rubber mannequin. The drill is real though! It's been so exciting to get out of the classroom a few hours each week and up into the simulation lab where I can begin to hone my craft..or crap..really either word could go there depending on the day. We have been learning how to prep the teeth for different types of filings and then placing the fillings with different types of restorative materials. It really is a ton of fun!
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| Drilled out Cavity Ready to fill |
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| Several Drillings and Fillings of varying quality |
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| A few finished fillings (and extraction sites) |
How it works is pretty neat. Each tooth is threaded up the root and has a small screw that holds it into the mouth. This way they can be removed and different teeth placed in for different filling types. Some of the teeth we drill have simulated cavites and some are solid plastic all the way through. The teeth with simulated cavities are made of varying density plastic with a hard white outer shell and a soft dark inner area where a typical cavity might naturally occur. We have drills that can operate at different speeds and burs of varying shapes and sizes to best access and remove the decay. With these teeth we just drill until all of the fake decay is removed and try to leave as much good tooth as possible. With the solid teeth we prepare a filling to assigned specifications and measurements. Once the cavity preparation is completed and checked by faculty we fill it in using the assigned material (so far composite or amalgam). While there still are some requirements and guidelines that I find totally asinine it has to be better than melting wax and swirling it around until it somewhat resembles a tooth.
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| Comparison of stock tooth and drilled and filled model |
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| A few front fillings before we learned shade matching (not that they would look different since I learned shade matching) |
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