My Very First Patient! :)

Today was so fun! I saw my very first patient! Everything went very smoothly and I am so thankful! 

I learned that scaling the lower anteriors can be more of a pain in the butt than I thought, and I am glad I learned the trick of drying them really well to make sure I can see what I missed! I am thankful for this experience and I am looking forward to many more! :)

Patient Day...again...

Today we finished our patient day, and I was the patient! It was really fun but I get restless in the chair! I am excited that we see our first patient on monday, I can't believe the semester is already almost over! I can't believe it! I learned how to use the Nebraska and I feel more comfortable with my instruments!



Patient Day

Today we had patient day and I was the patient! I didn't like it at all, but what I can learn from this is more sympathy for my patients. Its a long time to be in the chair! I feel like I am ready to see my first real patient! :)

Patient Day

Today we finished our mock patient day! It was a lot of fun! We went over OHI and then I finished scaling my patient and I ended up missing 1 spot :( but that is what we are here to do, learn! I am excited for the semester to be over and to get started working on real patients :)

Patient Day

Today we had our first Mock Patient day. It was a lot of fun and I actually feel like I am a hygienist! I saw a fellow classmate and we went through the whole clinic day from start to finish! I scaled 2 quads and I was very proud of myself! I need to make sure I better angulate the tip of the scaler when I go into the interproximal, that way I don't burnish. My patient was pretty clean but I still passed my scale checks and it made me feel good! Today was a great day! 

Air/Powder Polish & Fluoride

Today was a good practice day! I was able to have the air/powder polisher done on me, and it wasn't fun! It tastes like crap ha! We were paired up with people other than our pod friends, which is always fun :) I passed off my Sealant PE and my Fluoride PE :) We are going to be paired up with someone next week and if we are the patient we get to wear our street clothes :) We will be doing that for 2 weeks and then our first real patient is on November 21st :) We are moving along!

Sealants & Flouride

Today we learned how to prepare and place a sealant on appropriate teeth. It was a fun day even though my cold sore is still healing so I couldn't be worked on, plus I have had sealants and fillings so I don't have any teeth to be sealed. Then we talked about fluoride and learned how to demonstrate a fluoride treatment. Both fluoride and sealants are a preventive procedure that benefit patients of all ages!

Polish please?

Well today in clinic it was unfortunate because I have a cold sore on my lip, which means I cannot get worked on! :( I was able to learn the skill and practice on my pod partner, but I couldn't have my teeth polished! We used the air/powder polisher! It spits out water and sodium bicarbonate powder that removes stain. It is very messy but it works really well! Then we used the regular prophy cup with toothpaste and I feel like I have literally done this a million times! WE only have 3 more PE's to learn and 6 to pass off! I cannot believe we will be seeing our first patient on November 21st, that is so soon! I am getting excited to start feeling like I am a legitimate hygienist!:)

Eaglesoft Treatment Planning

Today we learned how to treatment plan on Eaglesoft. I have worked with this software before, so I feel very confident with this PE. I was able to pass off my Oral Diagnosis PE which included charting and recording. Today is test #2 for Costley, so we will be getting out of clinic early to take that test! Wahoo!

Watch out! Kayla Keller is on her way to becoming a dental hygienist!

Today in clinic we had another practice patient day! It was really fun because I feel like the more I practice, the better I get :) ha ha go figure! Crazy how that works! I have been able to practice probing, posterior curet, anterior scaler, and exploring! I still don't feel like I could go and clean a patient without having an instructor to come and help me! :) But I am well on my way there :)

Practice Patient Day

Today was kind of like a practice patient day. We had our pod partners in our chair and we did an extra-oral exam and then an intra-oral exam. We probed one quadrant and came up with a periodontal statement. Mine was, "pt is generally healthy with localized marginal gingivitis". Then we had them rinse with disclosing agent and took their BFI and PFI. Then we had the instructor come and check us off to make sure we did it the right way. It was fun, it is a lot to remember and I hope I can remember everything when I start seeing patients! I passed off my posterior curet scaler today :) wahoo! It was a great day in clinic!

Oral Diagnosis

So today in clinic we went over oral diagnosis. Though technically we are not able to make a "diagnostic" decision, we chart "suspicious areas" and chart all existing work that has been done. Thankfully I had lots of practice doing this in my office, so I feel pretty confident in it. I practiced my curet scaler PE because I hope to pass that off next time we have clinic. I need to remember my lateral pressure when I am doing mesial and distal because it helps to make the toe and face of the blade be at a better angle. If that makes any sense at all :) We are moving fast and we are about half way through the semester, I can't believe our mock patient day is coming up!! I am excited!

I have a BFI of 86% :)

Today in clinic we learned how to properly give OHI and demonstrate proper brushing and flossing techniques. We learned how to explain periodontitis and dental caries and used flip charts to help get our point across. After we put the disclosing agent in our patients mouth we counted the areas that had pink and purple. Pink means that it is new biofilm and purple means it has been there for awhile. You count how many areas and then depending on how many teeth they have, you find out their Biofilm Free Index. The disclosing agent wasn't that bad, but it didn't taste that good either! I passed off my Anterior Sickle Scaler PE wahoo! :) Good day in clinic! We were paired up with random people and that was way fun because we have been so used to working on the people in our pod, it was fun to have a switch up!

Curet Scaler

Wow, beside the pounding headache I have today, it was a pretty good afternoon! I feel more comfortable withe the curet scalers than I did with the anterior scalers from Monday! I get frustrated when I have to be very hard and aggressive on my typodont and then when I get in my pod partners mouth I forget to be soft and less aggressive! I enjoy the curets and I am excited to start doing more scalers!!

Anterior Instrumentation & Sickle Scalers!

Today we learned how to use anterior instruments, we worked with the Nebraska! Anterior instrumentation will be a little harder for me to grasp when it comes to the wrist action because I like to do the finger action, probably from watching the hygienists I work with, but it causes bad tension on your fingers and hand. So I really need to work on the wrist and arm motion and avoid the finger motion. I am so happy that I passed off my probing and exploring last week, I felt ahead of the game, but now we already have 4 new ones that we have learned and I need to focus on passing those off! Work work work! Life is good :)

Instrument Classification...

Today was a pretty fun day in clinic! It was a good day to be able to pass off PE's and practice other ones! I passed off my Probing and my Exploring! Yay!! I was so excited! Loupes helped me out so much, I am for sure getting some! We learned about all of our instruments that we have..finally! Which ones are for anterior or posterior, which ones are for heavy or light calculus, etc. It was a lot of information and I hope I can remember all of it when it comes time to pass off my PE :)

I am most excited to use my 13/14 and my 15/16..they are scary looking curettes, but I am excited!!

and so the instrumentation begins,,,

Today we learned how to properly adapt the explorer and the proper angulation with the working end. I thought probing was hard which made this seem a lot easier for me. I felt like I could grasp the idea of adaptation and angulation with an explorer. Maybe because I have to take an exact measurement with probing, it seems a lot harder. I was able to practice probing today, and I feel a little more confident. I think practice makes perfect and that is why I really need to be diligent in reading the material for clinic instead of skimming over it. I am starting to feel the stress of holding my instruments properly and making sure that I keep a light grasp and fulcrum properly. All in good time..

OUCH! Probing!

1, 2, & 3 mm is healthy!

Today in clinic we learned how to use the periodontal probe. While observing dental hygienists in private practice, they make it look so easy! It is definitely not as easy as it looks, let me tell you! I feel like I cannot get a good feel for the probe with the typodont, but  I do like practicing on the typodont for posture, angulation and fulcruming. I hope I am ready and able to pass this off when the time comes! I am starting to feel a little overwhelmed with inraoral PE's. Hopefully going home and practicing on my husband will help my confidence!

Intra-Oral Exam

Today we learned how to perform an Intra-Oral exam! I thought the extra-oral was very involved, but it's a cake walk compared to the intra-oral! There are so many landmarks and anatomical areas that you have to remember to check and note. On days like these I feel like I will never get it all down, but then after I study it a little bit more I get more and more comfortable! I am definitely ready to start doing things in the mouth. I understand that all of this is the foundation, but I just want to start getting into the mouth and scaling and probing! All in good time :)

Extra Oral exam feels GOOD :)

Today we learned the importance of the extra oral exam. When I am sick I can feel when my lymph nodes are swollen and tender, but now I have a better idea on how to locate the areas. It feels like a mini massage and I loved letting Instructor Caldwell and Kiersten practice on me. :) We were able to pass off some of our PE's and I feel like I was able to keep up/get ahead so that I am not as stressed. I really appreciate having a few different Instructors and TA's because they add something different to the environment! I love clinic!

Normal BP 120/80

Today in clinic we learned how to do vitals. I learned how to do the pulse, respiration and blood pressure on a live patient. I was really nervous to learn how to do blood pressure manually because I have always had an automatic blood pressure cuff and it always looked so hard. I actually enjoyed learning how to do it and I did pretty well :) It was kind of hard at first because you have to really listen and be careful not to bump the stethescope, but after a few tries I had the hang of it!This was the first clinic that I didn't have a head ache after, just fyi :)

HHX/RX/OE..ETC..ECT..

Today we had a pretty good time in clinic, learning about the importance of the proper health history recording. I think it's important to remember that we are health professionals and it is our job to show our patient that we are educated and well informed. The ways we go about making sure they are getting the proper treatment and not endangering them, is by having an updated thorough health history. I learned a lot today :) However, I don't know that I will remember all the abbreviations listed in our clinic manual, holy moly! Maybe someday :) 

Fulcrum Fulcrum, 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, 11:00, and 12:00!!

Lab was very fun today! This has been the most fun I have had in lab thus far! We were able to practice chair positions, posture safety, and the correct way to hold the instruments! Karen, Prof. Haffen and Prof. Costley were such a big help! I was so confused when I read the book and I didn't think I would grasp the concepts. But after I started working on my typodont and they all started coming by and helping us, I really feel confident that I am picking up the concepts. I need to practice some more before I will feel really comfortable, but I think instrumentation is something that we will get better at with practice! I am so excited to start doing these things on my peers :) I am starting to feel more and more like a real hygienist! I love it!!!

Barriers Barriers Barriers!

Today in clinic we learned how to set-up and take down our operatory area and how to properly bag and  sterilize our instruments. I can't believe how many barriers we use! All together I used about 13 different barriers! This is one clean Pod, I can tell you that! We practiced on one another today as well :) Olivia was my patient and I used the blue boa all over in her mouth as well as the HVE and saliva ejector. I am excited to start learning the chair positions and begin probing! I am SO EXCITED to start probing! Professor Costley said we need to learn how to properly hold instruments, vitals, health history and chair positions, before we can start probing :) Which makes sense to me, I am just getting really excited :) It was a good clinic day, I learned a lot!

My Typodont & Blue Boa

Today we were able to use our typodont and blue boa. The creator of the Blue Boa, Anna, came in and gave a small presentation about how it works and the long term benefits. I really like the Blue Boa and I know I will be using it in private practice. I was really excited to finally be able to get out typodonts out and play with them! I can't wait to get all that calculus off! :) Dr. Haffen was very helpful and gave us some great tips on how to better utilize the suctions and the proper holding techniques, she was really helpful and I know I am going to like her a lot :) Karen was our TA and she was super helpful and easy to talk to, I like her as well :) Today was a good day in clinic :)

* First Day of Clinic *

Today was the first day of clinic and it wasn't bad at all :)

We met our lab adjunct faculty Jenn and Angelique. They have been very helpful and I appreciate them very much! Getting to know the clinic area was fun and our pod's was fun. I feel a little bit overwhelmed but I am trying to take it one day at a time! 

Dental Hygiene

We finally made it! We are in one of the most prestigious dental hygiene programs in the nation!

We have worked really hard to get into this program, and now we will work really hard to get out! :)

I think we will all have a lot fun along the way!

I look forward to meeting everyone and enjoying our time together for the next two years!

Good luck everyone!

Hello!

Hello Dental Hygiene Class of 2013! I am excited to meet everyone and get started!

Good Luck to you all!

Kayla Keller