"Do not hire someone you can not fire"

In class we were required to interview a dental professional, being a dental hygienist or actual dentist...did not matter what specialty. The interview topic was to be base on some kinda ethical situation. We worked in partners on this assignment, conducted an interview, wrote a paper on the findings, and then had to create a powerpoint to present to the class.

Our ethical topic was based on insurance and changing dates on the forms.

The dentist that we interviewed seemed to be a very ethical person and seemed to answer all the questions "correctly". I was not sure if he/she was just telling us what we wanted to hear or actually being honest... It is hard to tell...

One big thing I learned from this project is people are going to say and do what ever they want...Some people might actually stop and consider the consequences of their actions, while other won't. They only thing we can do as dental hygienist is protect ourselves! Just remember the only person truly looking out for your best interest is YOU! (of course your parents/love ones are looking out for you too

This should have never happened

I was looking forward to my Pedo Rotation the other because I knew that I was not going to run over and most of my classmates said there was normally nothing to do, so I should get out early.

This was a good thing because I had a nutrition test after lunch and I was hoping to use the extra time to review for it... There was my first mistake, I should have never thought I would have extra time. In hygiene school, there is no such thing as extra time. lol! jk

Well, My first patient was a teenage girl and I figured out really quickly that thing were done completely differently in Pedo, than in out hygiene clinic. (made me miss all our rules) In Pedo they told me that we do not give a head and neck exam, that the doctor would do it when he comes over. (but that wasn't the case, he didn't do one) Also, in that clinic they make you prophy before you scale...all these differences just threw me off my hygiene game. :p

But the thing that made no sense to me the most was the fact that I was given a patient that was an adult...in pedo....makes no sense. Plus I found out that the patient was an illegal immigrant getting free dental care...weird :/

So, before I started cleaning the patient they went over his/her medical history. I could not understand anything they were saying because the patient only spoke very little english...Once they were done reviewing the patient's history, I began cleaning. The patient had moderate to heavy generalized calculus, so I decided to use the Cavitron. But the way the unit was set up in Pedo, it was completely different than out hygiene clinic. (plus it was totally for right handed people) The Cavitron instead of being delivered over top the patient, it was a side delivery system...for right handed people! So this was just another thing to add to my list of things that disoriented me....

Once I was done with cleaning the patient, I gave him/her a final rinse because they were experiencing a lot of bleeding while scaling. After I finished rinsing, I reached around to put back the air/water syringe and saliva ejector and that is when it happened. The dang Cavitron tip when through my glove into my hand and caused it to bleed. (if only it did not draw blood, then I could have studied for my nutrition test :P) I sat the patient up and then washed the area immediately and then squirted hand sanitizer on it just to make myself feel better. Then I asked one of the assistants what to do....

They made me fill out an incident report and made the patient stay because we both would need to get blood drawn that day. After I filled out the forms, me and my patient was escorted to oral surgery where all the real "fun" began.

In oral surgery, I was required to call student health and talk to the RN there about the exposure. Once discussing what exactly happen, she gave me some questions to ask my patient (you know, embarrassing ones). Some of the questions were:
-How many sexual partners have you been with?
-Do you have AIDS or Hep C?
-Do you sleep around?
-Have you had any blood transfusions?
-Any tattoos?
-Do you do drugs? Share needles?

So once I had my list of "fun" questions, I had to ask my patient. Oo, but wait! The patient does not speak english! Lol! So now I have to run around searching for someone that spoke Spanish, so she would understand what I was saying. (fun stuff) Lucky for me one of the assistants in Pedo spoke Spanish and was willing to come to oral surgery and help my out. She asked her all the questions, then I had to call back the nurse and relay the answers to her. The RN required me to come to student health to get my blood drawn, but first (lol) I had to deliver the patient's blood to the hospital for testing...

The lady in oral surgery gave me directions to get to the two location where the patient's blood needed to be dropped off. (May I say they were the worst directions ever!) I must have gotten lost 3 or 4 times before some kind nurse came to my rescue! She lead me in the right directions and I was able to deliver the blood to the correct places...Now I just had to find my way out of the hospital (may I say I have a REALLY poor sense of direction). So I got lost a couple more times before a very nice man showed me the way out. :)

Now I was on my way to student health to get my blood drawn. (thank goodness) Getting my blood drawn was probably the quickest part of this whole ordeal, well except for getting stuck. lol! So while waiting for my blood to be taken, the lab called with the HIV/AIDS blood test. NEGATIVE! Woohoo! After that my blood was drawn and I was free to go and beg the faculty to let me reschedule my test (just kidding) They let me reschedule, no problem. :P

But I did want to share this event with everyone because this could happen to anyone of us. So it is important to try and remain calm, washing the site as soon as possible, and do NOT let the patient leave before you get their blood! Because I made the mistake before of allowing the patient to leave and that was scarey! Getting tested every so often to see if anything had popped up. :/

I just hope my "wonderful" experience allows everyone to learn and helps everyone protect themselves... :)

How low can you go...

It has been several weeks since I have seen this patient, but this patient was one of my most interesting cases this semester. The patient present to clinic for just a normal 6 month recall appointment, but had gingival swelling on the papilla between teeth 8 and 9. The patient said that their gums would swelling and then go down. With closer examination, I discovered that tooth #9 had class 3 mobility (this tooth had a crown on it). Also when I probed the area, pus drained out and the probe reading was a 12mm.

Safe to say we order a PA for that tooth and signed up for a dental exam. The xray did not reveal anything that was out of the ordinary, but there was some bone loss are the tooth. When the doctor came over to take a look at it, he agreed that the tooth was mobile and wanted to refer the patient to an Endodontist for further examination. The doctor said the reason nothing was revealed on the xray was because fracture teeth rarely show up on radiographs. And the reason for referring to Endo was because they might be able to save the tooth, instead of just extracting it.

I referred the patient like instructed and made him another appointment to finish his cleaning, but the patient never showed. I was disappointed because I wanted to see if they extracted the tooth or were able to save it. But I was able to read the SOAP notes and saw that they were not able to save the patient's tooth. :(

Let me sit down and just relax

I had my oral surgery rotation this past week and I am not going to lie, I was nervous. I have assisted before, but every time I assist during an extraction I would always get that hot, about to faint feeling. And to make things more embarrassing, I also loss color and my color turns to a whitish-gray color. I did warn my partner about this, but I think she thought I was just joking. But after the first extraction procedure, I think she found out pretty quickly I was not. lol!

I would not say I let my queasiness hold me back from helping out, but I just wish let would let you sit while assisting in oral surgery. lol!

I had a theory that if I were to sit and assist during all the bloody/flapping gums I would be ok. So the other day I got to put that theory to the test. I was in clinic last Friday without a patient, so one of the faculty sent me to the Perio clinic to assist during a surgery. Once again I was a little nervous, but I found out in Perio you can sit and assist! We started the procedure the procedure, the doctor started by making an incision from the patient's second molar to their first permolar. Then she separated the gums from the bone. I could see the ramus of the mandible after she was done. There was a lot of bleed and grossness. lol! But amazingly throughout the whole procedure, I did not once get that faint feeling! So my theory was right. Sitting makes all the difference...at least for me. :)

Lets All Sing a Hygiene Song!

I know we all have to go to our head start classrooms and think of something to say to all those tiny people...There are tons of these dental songs and thing on Youtube. Just make sure they're appropriate for the age you are talking to. And don't forget to floss ;)

Rally Day 2011

This was the first time I have participated in anything like this. It was a very interesting experience and I took away a lot from this experience. I especially liked watching the house come to order and talk about all the different bills they to need to vote on.

I understand that we are the future of the dental hygiene profession and knowing what is going on in the political setting is very important. We are the voice of the future and we need to let the people in office know what is best for our profession. We might have voted these people in office, but the do not really understand what dental hygienist do or really anything about the dental profession.

Bring the past to the present

Last Friday there was a lunch and several past hygienist from the program were there and shared their stories. I was really surprised that only one was still practicing hygiene...and some of them are now doctors! Thats really cool.