I Am Blue and White

So, today before clinic started our pod had a discussion on what "color" each of us are.  The girls in my pod told me they thought I was a mix of blue and white, which meant nothing to me because I didn't know what any of the colors meant.  Marianne told me that blue means that I am motivated to do things through friendship and that white means peaceful.  I decided that that sounds exactly like me, so I'm proud to be a blue/white person.  :)  Then Marianne said she was a red person, meaning she is motivated by power.  Ha ha.  I love starting clinic days with laughter. 
We got to get all of our instruments out, learn about, and sterilize them today.  It was so much fun!  Every day we're one step closer to having a real patient in our chair which is frightening and exciting at the same time.  I love how several of them are color coded.  The color coding will definitely help with learning the instruments.  In our pod we decided we're going to invent an instrument that will do the mesials on one side of the instrument and the distals on the other side instead of facial and lingual in honor of Instructor Hafen.  Then, once we've made a ton of money from our new instrument invention we will use the money to buy all of us loupes.  After sterilizing our instruments and having our set up race (our pod was so close to coming in first) we got to have a practice day.  It was awesome to be able to just practice and not go on to something new.  I feel more confident probing around in someone else's mouth now.  I hope we have more practice days like today.  I also think Kristie did an excellent job when practicing on me.  I liked watching her work on me in the mirror.  It helped me to learn better technique for myself.  Instructor Hafen showed us how we have to tip the explorer more when going into the col area, which helped both of us out a lot.  She gave us lots of good tips today that we were grateful for.

Get Your Fulcrum Up... Literally

Most of you that are not hygiene students are probably wondering right about now, "What is a fulcrum?"  Well, I will tell you what a fulcrum is.  A fulcrum is when your fingers are stacked on each other with your ring finger postioned on a tooth in order to give maximum stability (because you don't want to be poking your patient in the chair if they make any sudden movements).  I'm pretty sure that I received the record for not "getting my fulcrum up" high enough, at least when we first started practicing.  I got better the longer we practiced thankfully.  I also truly believe in the saying "practice makes perfect" because I have been able to do things that I didn't used to think I would ever be able to do.  I feel much more comfortable with instruments in both of my hands now, which used to be an awkward feeling - in fact I love being able to have instruments in both my hands because I feel like a real hygienist now.   

Probing... Dun... Dun... Dun...

We actually got to work in someone's mouth today and probe.  It was so exciting to actually work in someone's mouth.  Whitnee was my very patient patient.  We combined everything we've been learning with our light, mirror, and fulcrum to finally be able to probe.  We even practiced charting the probing depths.  I hope that I can get to a point where I can chart like 5 teeth at a time and remember all of my measurements.  I really like our probes (except for the wrong ones half of us had) because they are easy to read.  There is no guessing what the measurement is.  Actually, my biggest hope is that one day I'll actually be able to probe an entire mouth in 5 minutes because we practiced for 20 - 30 minutes and didn't even finish the whole mouth.  I decided that if patients didn't have posterior teeth probing would be so much nicer.  If patients also had super flexible cheeks that would be fabulous as well because then I could just shove a mirror in there and pull as hard as I would need to in order to see the teeth.  I also thought it was interesting being a patient and being able to watch Whitnee probe me.  I learned a lot just from watching her work.  I felt like I got a better understanding of how much pressure to use and that if the gums start blanching a lot you know you're pushing too hard.  Oh, before we started probing today we got to use marshmallows and corn candy to practice our touch and line angles.  It was a lot of fun, especially when some of the girls decided to eat their candy.  Ha ha.  Well, all in all today was a good day and hopefully next time we probe we will all have the correct probes!

Glad I remembered

So, I'm not an avid blogger (I prefer to scrapbook), so I'm really glad that I remembered that I needed to update my blog about clinic yesterday before going to clinic tomorrow.  Yesterday went by really fast - one minute it was 12:30 and when I looked at the clock again it was 4.  We practiced fulcruming yesterday and if I were to summarize fulcruming it would be stacking your fingers together and somehow managing to get them to stay that way while working in someone's mouth.  Pro. Costley made it look easy in the demonstration and I thought, "This is not as hard as I thought it would be."  Man, was I wrong.  My middle and ring fingers seemed liked they had opposing magnets on them because they would not stay together in certain clock positions.  I can tell that's definitely what I will be practicing this weekend (along with a bunch of PE's).  I have also decided that I thorougly enjoy being a pretend patient.  I could lay back in the chair all day - it's quite relaxing.  I was also very proud of myself for feeling confident about set up and take down finally.  I feel like it's coming naturally now instead of trying to pull from memory what I'm supposed to do next.  Well, we start probing tomorrow.  I hope I come home with my mouth still in one piece.

Go for it

Well, once again we were given a demo of what we were expected to learn and then sent on our merry way to go and practice it.  I'm not sure if I will ever get used to being expected to just go for it.  However, it is very exciting and it helps push me to do what needs to be done.  Today we were shown how to do an extra oral exam and how to use our mirror and fulcrum.  I decided that if every hygienist at every dentist office gave every patient an extra-oral exam, most patients would definitely be coming back every 6 months.  I also think patients would be more relaxed and less anxious to be at the dentist.  Patients would think they were getting a special massage even though all we are doing is checking for "lumps and bumps," meaning swollen nodes or any abnormal areas.  We also want the patient to tell  us if they feel any pain or tenderness.  After doing the extra-oral exam we got to practice using our mirror and using our ring finger to be our fulcrum.  It was so exciting to be almost to the point of actually cleaning each other's teeth!  Today was very interactive and a lot of fun.  MeChel and Tori were definitely good partners to be with.  Thanks for letting me practice on you two!

Vital Signs

Vital signs... what to say about vital signs?  Well, originally I was scared to death to have vital my vital signs taken (because of several bad experiences I have had, not to mention that having my arm go numb is like having a migraine).  However, after practicing on others and after being practiced on I actually had a good time doing it.  Not only can I take vital signs now, but I don't mind having vital signs taken on me.  I actually liked it so much I plan on practicing on my parents today when Launce and I go up to visit them today.  Hopefully they don't read my blog before Launce and I go up today... I want to work on unsuspecting victims... I mean patients. 

I wondered how nurses manually took blood pressures and how they figured it out with the cuff and stethescope and I have learned how it is done.  I was most surprised that the cuff actually cuts off the blood flow to the arm (that sounded dangerous to me at first until I understood the whole process).  The first beat that is heard is the systolic and the last beat that is heard is the diastolic.  When my blood pressure was taken I was around 105/60.  I am surprised that my blood pressure is so low.  I used to be 120/80, but apparently my running has helped out.  Sweet!

We also learned how to feel/count the pulse and that don't ever use your thumb or else you may get a false pulse from your own thumb.  You also do not take your fingers off of the patient's pulse when you begin to count respirations because if the patient knows that you are taking respirations they probably will not continue to breath normally.  I had an especially hard time with this when I knew that someone was watching me breathe.

Well, I guess I will wrap up my unusally long blog by saying that we still have an hour and we're pretty much done for the day already.

Health History

Well, today MeChel and I got to have a good look at each others' health histories... nothing too exciting to report about either of us unfortunately.  It was fun to learn how to use our drug reference book.  I never thought that learning about drugs could be interesting, but I have now decided that I find it fascinating to see how different drugs react.  I took an extra sheet home so that I can practice writing Launce's history (he's such a good husband to let me practice with him all the time - the best part is is that he enjoys it!)  It seems like there are a lot of things to write, but I'm sure after a while it will just come naturally.  I also learned how to properly fill out my own health history, so now I will be more effective when I go to the doctor too.  Ha ha.

Head Positioning

Today we worked on learning the different positions that we work in and the different ways to have to patient tilt their head in order for us to stay in the neutral working posture.  I found the book helpful, but it was hard to imagine where and how I should be sitting, but once I got into the clinic and could actually practice it felt almost second nature.  Megan gave us some very funny, helpful hints at where the patients head should be in relation to our body and what areas we are cleaning.  After she told us her hints I don't think I will be forgetting anytime soon.  Ha ha.  We used our mirrors and probes for the first time today as well.  I took my first x-rays in Radiology today too.  I was pretty proud of myself because they turned out pretty good.  I decided that taking x-rays is a lot of fun and I can't wait to do it again.