Of Keystone Dental Seminar and Second year first semester.

Howdy good folks?!
     Its been a short while since I posted something here. Short while? Right!
Anyhow I hope everyone has been doing great and thanks for stopping by.
Finally made it out of second semester of hygiene school alive....kidding! Its not that bad. The oral pathology 2 was over yesterday and same for Dental pharmacology. I promise you I had fun with Dental Pharm! Same can't be said of the Oral Pathology.  But I ended up doing better in Pathology than Pharm. Happens all the time.

Last week I had a chance to attend the Pennsylvania Dental Hygiene Association Keystone Dental conference. This was held in Lancaster, PA. The 5 hour drive was no fun but the event was. I had a chance to meet a number of people who are followers of this blog. I had the chance to meet one of my mentors in this field. It was first time meeting her in person .I'm talking about Speaker and writer  Jasmin Harley. The owner of 'Beyond the Prophy LLC and another podcast called MOMgienist. You can follow and listen to the very informative podcast  here and you can check out the Beyond the prophy here. She had a talk to present so we didn't have a lot of time to talk but we had time for a quick chat and a photo.

Bottom Left,Jasmin, Kelly and I

 I didn't present my project as it was not among the top 3 that were to present from our school. Kelly and I manned the sales desk and we sold a number of things. I think Kelly is in the wrong profession. Why!Anyone who made a mistake of stopping by our sales table ended up buying something. Now, anyone who can sell candy and chocolate to Hygienists and other dental professionals can sell anything! Way to go Kells! You know with such a a talent you don't have to be trapped in the dental operatory.

Kelly and I repsentin'

 My other classmates rocked the table clinic presentations. Maria with her fluoride project, Nikki and Ashante with Electronic Cigarettes and Sara, Catherine and Laurel with their project on Hypophosphatasia

 

Nikki and Ashante rocking!

 

Maria was ready!

Catherine,Sara and Laurel were all set.

In the evening I  attending the talk hosted by the nationally acclaimed motivational speaker Linda Larsen. Very inspiring talk on "Staying the Right Side up -When everything's Upside Down". By the time for the "Get your Glow on Party" at 7PM all my classmates and left  and was already tired. I went out to see Lancaster Night life and the first Irish pub I stopped right next to where the conference was held, the first thing I saw was "Kenyan Food and Music". At first I thought someone was playing a very bad plank but on getting inside I was in for a surprise. Kids from  Kenya were performing and singing. Most of these kids are orphans and come from very poor single parent families and live in a group home called Maisha.This is Swahili word which means life. I ended up meeting a lot of people from Kenya and had a great evening of food, great talk and some great dancing to traditional Kenyan music. A lot of people from Lancaster came out to support the kids. The event was dubbed a Night fro Africa and I bought a T-shirt to show my support. You can check out their website here  and support them if you can.

 The Maisha Kids

Special thanks to our program director Mrs Dana Shaffer for working tirelessly to make the event happen and for being there with us all though to make it sure everything went on as planned. Also shout out to Kelsey and Kailee from our sister school-Fortis Scranton for being faithful followers of the blog and for finally meeting you in person! We forgot to take a picture but next time...there will be many pics!
Let me enjoy my one day break before getting back to start second semester tomorrow.
6 more months to go till done with the program! Let the count down begin. 

TODAY WAS LAST DAY OF 1ST YEAR DENTAL HYGIENE SCHOOL!!!

Feelings right now

After exactly a year since starting DH school today marked the last official day of first year. Thursday 21st of Sept 2017. Probably next year a time now I will have my board exams done and maybe looking for a job or working.

This semester has been the toughest for me in DH school so far. I have had so much going on that I barely survived getting above the cut point in Oral Pathology. Our cut off points are 75%  and for the first time I got a score below 80%.

But to look at the positive side of things, I'm done with probably the class which I consider my personal least favorite; Dental Nutrition.
So far I have been a bit lucky with my patients at the clinic with minimal cancellations. mater of fact I saw my first class IV patient this week. I'm looking forward to working on removing his stain. Also I got to see Lichen Planus in one of my patients.

I'm looking forward to doing Oral pharmacology as I have a lot of pharmacists in my family and I hope to get a lot of support and score a straight A.
Next semester the first years will be coming in...It's next week Thur by the way and I also hope to make a few of them come in for a cleaning as a way to increase my patient pool.  

Thanks for stopping by and see you next semester as we see what it brings!

DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR FIRST TIME?

Hello folks!
It's always a pleasure to share with you my journey in hygiene school.

Well, today was new day for last semester as first year. Until Sept  25th,well one day before my birthday, I will be a first year for the last time. We just had a long break (4 days). yes, that's a really long break for hygiene student in summer.
So far my patients have been showing up( Check previous blog posts) and see how my parents were not showing up and how frustrated I was.
So today I did my first case of arrestin...placing antibiotics into a periodontal  pocket over 5mm.
It was so much much fun
Tomorrow I get to get my first pediatric  patient. A 9 year old girl. Keep it tuned here to know how that goes.
So far getting more comfortable with the scaling but I haven't taken any radio-graphs on any of my patients yet. 
Its amazing to think that next year time like now we should be done with the whole course so keeping eyes on the price.
This semester  classes are
Oral pathology
Dental materials 2
and Clinic 2.
We also have to present for our dental Table Clinics. I will talk about my project  for clinic in another blog  post
Cheers!
Also, please check out

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No patient for second day straight!

Well, patient showed up but was not due for adult prophy which should be every 6 months. Unfortunately I had to suffer a very bad and draining afternoon.
Hoping for better things next week before I drop out.
Joking!!
Take care

GET DENTAL HYGIENE PATIENTS IN EXCHANGE FOR WEED? NO WAY!! NOT HAPPENING!

I don't get to update as much as I would like because most times there is no time to;
Okay, Let me be more honest..because even when there's time I'm too exhausted to do it....Okay,I can do better than this, because even when there is time I'm too lazy to do it!!
So here's a recap of what has been going on and from now hence forth I'm going to be updating every week at least or everyday...Really?

1. We have started seeing real patients in clinic and so far I have been very unlucky with my patients because the very first few patients should be close friends and family members but being out of town, out of state,out of the country or should I say continent: places you almost against all the odds. So I had to depend on public patients who can be very slippery as first few weeks you are still in learning mode and the patient need to be someone very patient(Did you see what I did there?)  or someone who can tolerate your inexperience and also probably ready come back for multiple appointments. So my patients have been cancelling the appointments several times and like today the patient showed up LATE and was RUSHING me so we didn't get that far. The afternoon one ended up cancelling and I had everything set up and ready for them...No more frustrating feeling than that.

2. Mrs. Ross, one of our best instructors (She's among the 3 that found and developed the hygiene program) left last week. She was literary a walking experience and knowledge and she will be greatly missed. She went back into clinical practice. She's wished good luck and hope to meet her somewhere in the corridors of DH.

3. I QUIT my job yesterday. The job was emotionally, physically and mentally draining me so much that for the 16hrs that I was there on weekend it felt like 61hrs!!! That  way I would dread going there and would be thinking about it all day Fridays and Mondays even after I left I had serious  job related hangover..not good for a dental hygiene student taking Dental Embryo and other classes and having to hustle for patients. For now my NEW JOB is working on my small online business HERE

4. WEED FOR PATIENTS. I decided to go out giving fliers to the community in a bid to get more patients in the clinic and I managed to give out well over 150 fliers. Well, that's not the NEWS. The news is that while passing out the fliers in Downtown ERIE to some young people they made me an offer. How about I find them stressed out college kids who need to relieve school stress by smoking some of their high grade weed and then they would give me 2 patients per customer they got from me...What?!! END OF ME TALKING TO THEM>>>I WAS GONE BEFORE THEY COULD SAY ANYTHING ELSE...IF THAT'S THE WAY TO GET PATIENTS I WOULD RATHER DROP OUT OF SCHOOL THAN GET IN TROUBLE.
Thanks for reading and I hope to keep you all updated on the goings on in my program and feel free to drop a comment in the comment session below. Also if you are an hygienist share different ideas of getting more patients to my seat without someone trying to get me to do ANYTHING OUTSIDE THE LAW OR ETHICS.

OUR 2ND YEARS PASSED THEIR CLINICAL BOARDS 100%!!!

Last Friday we had a chance to see the second years take their final clinical board exams. We were so lucky as we got to see what exactly goes on when you bring in a class 3patient to be your dental boards patient.
Once you take the vitals of the patient you get to have the doc approve them and they they are taken to an examination room where 3 diffrent docs examine them after  you  choose  any sext you want to work on.
Well, good news is that our big sisters. the second years passed- 100% that is the whole class. We are vert excited and happy for them and also under pressure as we are challenged to perform as good as them.
meanwhile next week but we will be seeing our first Rad patient in the clinic. Next month we will then start seeing real patients in the clinic. We have made a lot of progress and looking forward to see real patients.
Finally today we applied fluoride treatment on each other for the first time.
**This was a quick post to update whats been going on as we have a ton of homework to do and also lot's of tests coming our way so no much time.
Thanks for stopping buy.

Last Semester as a First year!!

Time has been flying so first. This is the first week of my last semester as a first year. At the end of this semester I will be bringing in my very first patient to the clinic for a FMX or full mouth Series  Radiographs! I'm not sure where I'm gonna find this kind of patient but I can wait!
Keep Tuned!

Trust Me!

WHAT A BLOODY MESS! BLOOD ALLOVER?

Today,for the first time since we started hygiene school last year September 2016 we got to explore each others mouth in sextant 5.

Its  all easy and nice seeing the instructor demo how to do it and then have us the students try the same on the typodonts. Why?

1. Typodonts don't bleed
2. Typodonts do not give you feedback
3. Typodonts don't ouch when you prick them wrongly.
4. You can concentrate on checking your ergonomics for a second without looking whether your working end is buried deep in the tissue.5
5.Just because.

HOWEVER, when today we had our fellow classmates on the seat and it was time to explore a real, breathing,worried,overworked dental hygiene student it was the first sign that we meant real business.Boy! I even broke a sweat and my instructor cautioned me on being over gentle. It's the closest I ever got to see the explorer get buried way deep in the gingival tissue like that. Most times when you got to the hygienist for a cleaning you do not get to see what they do as you are the patient.
Well, today as soon as my clinic partner buried the explorer on the tissue I bled right away and it's a lot of bleeding.

I have been using a water pik floss which I was made to understand is as good as no flossing and so could have been one of the reasons for bleeding. I also I'm due for  bi annual cleaning which I should get soon. So from now o will use the thread floss and watch for the results.

It's been a long day with the class running from 9:30AM to 5:30PM because we had to have a Radiology class to recover a class time we missed on Presidents day or something and by the time we were taking our last bite wings I was ready to call it a day. I'm waiting to see how my last bit wing  of left molar is going to look like as I got an error message while taking it. I depressed the exposure button too quickly.
Anyone remember their first time working inside each others mouths with instruments? How was the experience?

DENTAL HYGIENE IS FOR UNDERACHIEVERS WHO COULDN'T GET INTO OTHER HEALTH CAREERS!

Some people are just plain sour or mean! Last Friday on my way from the Rad lab I happened to have had my scrubs on and stopped by at Walmart to grab some laminated binders for my notes. This particular Walmart is close to my house and I debated weather to go change from scrubs or just pass by it.

I was about to check out when I noticed a middle aged lady looking at me. We locked eyes for a moment and I never took anything of it. As usual, whenever one goes to do shopping for one thing,without a shopping list, we inevitable remember something else we needed. So there I was rushing back to grab some pens.

I got back on the line in time and guess who was standing in the line before me? Nobody but the lady again. She stood out because of the way she had her hair colored. Without as much as hello she turned to me and asked "Great Lakes Institute?" I replied with a smile and told her no. She pressed on "CNA?" Again I assumed she was asking all this because of my scrubs and I politely told her no.
To let her get me off the awkward interview I told her Fortis Institute. I thought that wou;ld do it,but boy! Was I wrong.

She went ahead to make assumption of what I study and announced it almost loudly to everyone. "Oh, so you are doing nursing? " That was enough to attract the attention of almost all the elderly shoppers who you mostly find shopping at that time of the day. At this point my patience was running out with this lady at an alarming rate. I told her an emphatic NO. I'm in Dental hygiene School followed by that look that says 'STOP ASKING ME ALL THESE STUPID QUESTIONS PAY FOR YOUR STUFF AND GET GOING'. I thought of maybe going and self checking out but I decided to wait and  see her next card.
"Why would you waste your money on that?" Blurted the woman who now turned back to me with new enthusiasm as  if she had just seen a real life unicorn. At this point I was almost pissed. "Because its what i like and its the best one could ever be in this life".
"You know that's not like a real dentist,right?" This woman was not about to give up.
I decided to go down to her level and piss the heck out of her at this point.
"No, it's not like a real dentist. Hygienist are in charge of dentists and we tell them what to do when they can't solve anything we are there for them"
At this point she had already paid and was now standing at the end of the queue . " My friend used to be an hygienist assistant and she left it for nursing because she wasn't getting a job and when she did she earned so little. If that what they lied to you at Fortis you better think twice. Its not a good career and is for people who cant get into things like nursing. I'm thinking of going back to school myself...."
I have no idea what she said past that for the moment she said Hygiene is for people who can't get into other programs I was on my way out and no further audience for her.
Why would anyone think like this, Ignorance? Jealousy? or just plain dump!
Are these the kind of patients waiting on us out there. In other world, she might turn out to be a very good patient. Have you had an incidence of someone with total ignorance on what hygienists do?! Let me know in the comments below.

TAKING RADIOGRAPHS AND WORKING IN THE CLINIC.

        Lately a lot has been going on academically and also very fast. Take for example this week; from Monday we have had exams or skills evaluation every single day and this will go on till Friday and this all amidst a lot of homework too. This is because Dental hygienists are supposed to be knowledgeable in a variety of things in order to be competent dental clinicians and also educators to their patients. The program is accelerated so a lot of work is covered in such a short time. One of our instructors  actually told us that she feel that the work we cover in those two years is enough to have us awarded a bachelors degree.

        So for the first time we are learning how to take dental radio-graphs (We have to avoid calling them dental X-rays ) for professionalism sake. That is in radiology 1. We had a chance to take a radio graph of anything we wanted and my specimen was so huge couldn't fit on the film( I had a rounded stone from a river)  and our instructor Mrs Snyder was kind enough to let me use her ring as a specimen. I got a clear image as this time was careful enough in the darkroom to prevent any light leak which damages the film during processing. I leaned  this the first time we practiced with films with no image in the dark room. and got mine messed up. Hard to believe that by end of Radiography 2 which is next semester we will be bringing in a real patient and take full mouth radiographs of them.
          In pre-clinic, its been a roller-coaster with all the little fine  details one has to master. Thankfully our instructors have been more than patient  with everything we are doing for it takes just one small thing to mess up the whole process. Take for example the steps  you have to carefully follow  while donning PPE in the right format.  The fun of opening the new instruments dwindled as soon as we realized they are not held the same way we hold our pens or spoon! However. the more practice we do with the instruments and mastering their names the more the fun resumes back. Well, the Gracey,Columbia,jacket and Bernhert are not names of places,things, or even people but the various instruments we are going to be using for the rest of our....not semester,lifes actually.

       We have learned to set up units, tear them down and even take vitals and even conduct extra-oral examinations on each other. It's so much fun working in the clinic and learning everything new everyday as no day is exactly like the other one.
Im going to do a more detailed posts on the instruments and the radiography machines soon as they deserve a full post. The second years are already preparing for their board exams as they graduate this summer, hard to believe that next summer is going to be our turn.

PS: One of the faithful followers of this blog is a dental hygiene student from Jamaica and she will probably be writing as a guest author soon to tell us of her experiences over there. Thanks Stephanie and good luck!

OUR FIRST TIME DOING IT....TOMORROW WE ARE DOING IT AGAIN FOR THE SECOND TIME!

I keep promising  myself to put up a post at least once every few weeks but one thing leads to another and before I know it  days turn to weeks then weeks to months and months to a full semester with no single post. Hello readers! Welcome to my world of constant procrastination.

This semester I haven’t taken time to update you on what we have been up to. Well, we started our pre-clinics, dental materials and we are also taking oral microbiology (Should have just been called Viral Microbiology) 

If there has been a more exciting and challenging time in hygiene school for me must confess it’s this semester. Every day we get closer to doing what we are really training to be. Dental Hygienist. We did our first sealants on our typodonts  (Plastic and rubber model of the mouth with the teeth).  The first time we got to work in the clinic. Time went by so first maybe due to the excitement of being in the clinic for the first time. It was also the first time we got to wear our scrubs. This was in dental materials (DH170)

The next lab we got to take impressions of the teeth in the dental lab. If you enjoy working by getting down to basics and creating something from scratch the dental lab is the best place you can be in the dental world. Trust me. We did the impressions of our typodonts again and even though mine was not that great, a large chunk of it remained in the ‘patient’ mouth.  This is because I let it seat there for a longer time than expected.  I’m really looking forward to giving it another shot tomorrow. In tomorrow lab we will be doing sealants and taking impressions on the typodonts at the same time. Hoping to perfect my skill.

Doing sealants on the typodonts

What excites me about these classes is that we have our instructors who come with a ton of accumulated experience and dedication to match. Mrs. Ross taking us in the pre-clinic has been at the school since it started the hygiene program and that is over 10 years ago so she knows the system inside out. Mrs. Shaffer taking us in dental materials has been in the academia of dentistry for a long time and is the past president of Northwestern Pennsylvania Dental Hygienist Association.  Sometimes it just helps when the people in the steering wheel are people who have been there, seen that and done that. Of course another great advantage as usual is having some of our classmates who have been assistants before and so they keep some of us reassured even when we do crappy impressions by telling us that they will get better with time. Of course it’s always good to hear it from fellow students. Thanks Elyse and Ashante.

So far the classes are keeping us busy enough as there’s lots of material to cover and at least 2 quizzes or exams every week.

Pssssst… Marc, the other dental hygiene guy has come up with a name of his typodont and he addresses ‘her’ by the name. The name escapes me right now but I’m highly suspicious there’s a history to the name. I’m still doing my research so has to know how to ‘get’ him if he dare claim one more stupid thing about me.

Thanks for reading and let me know what you have been up to or what you think in the comments section below.

GAP TOOTHED SMILE (PERFECT BEAUTY OR DENTAL MALFUNCTION?)

Gap front teeth .Source:Pinterest

     That's a complicated question right there. So, we are currently taking a course in dental morphology and we get to this chapter on form and function of teeth just after occlusion. This is something to do with teeth alignment in the mouth and stuff like spacing of teeth. Good thing about having instructors  who have practiced as dental hygienists before and have been in the field for sometime is that they always have lots and lots of real life case scenarios to share from the dental offices.

        While we were discussing about the proximal contacts areas the instructor mentions something something about the gab in the front maxillary (diastema) and how they have had people go in the dental office to have it 'fix'. Now that got my attention. Reason this got my attention is not only because I have a gap in my front teeth ( I do not pay attention to it and do not even think about it). By the way my brother Dennis has one and my nephew (His son Mark) has one too. It's a family thing I think.
         So the reason this got my attention was because in some parts of Africa and in particular Kenya, there's is a lot of cultural significance attached to the front teeth gap. So much that it has virtually made some families 'wealthy'. If a girl has a gap between her teeth she was and is till considered to be a perfect beauty. As with African traditions once a man marries you have to pay dowry to the girls family as a show of appreciation for having brought up the girl you wanted to marry. Now, if the girl happens to have a gap between the front teeth the dowry was going to be much more than that of a 'plain smiled girl'. Without a gap. If someone had lets say 6 girls all with gaps between the teeth he gained a lot of respect from his peers and could easily gain a leadership position as he was seen a person with potential to get very wealthy after dowry payment.

                                                   

     I remember as a young boy people looking at my brother and saying to my parents, "well,its a shame they are not girls!" In my tribe it doesn't mean a thing if a man has a gap between his teeth and if it was considered  something that needed fixing I'm figuring out that maybe my mum would have 'fixed' ours. But I remember some girls going to her dental office to get he gap between their teeth so as to have perfect smiles or others to have more dowry paid to their parents once they got married.

     So much has been discussed about the gap in the front teeth and I feel kind of lucky to have grown up partly in a entirely different African  culture and now living in a different American culture as things get very interesting sometimes. I'm sure there is still so much to learn and appreciate and once again, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. For example In a recent Cosmopolitan column, "Orange Is the New Black" actor Uzo Aduba -- aka fan favorite Crazy Eyes -- shares how she came to love her front tooth gap. Growing up in the U.S. where a so-called "perfect" smile involves two straight rows of (probably braces-assisted) space-free teeth, Aduba long felt self-conscious about her gap, which didn't sit well with her Nigerian mother: This is what she had to say;

Growing tired of my persistence, my mother sat me down. "Uzo, I will not close your gap and here's why. You have an Anyaoku gap, my family's gap." She told me the history of her lineage and how much of her family, extended and immediate, had this gap. It's a signature in the village she grew up in. People know the Anyaokus, in large part, by that gap. They also revered them for it. In Nigeria, my mom explained, a gap is a sign of beauty and intelligence (Take that, Chiclets!). People want it. My mother desperately wished she had the gap but wasn't born with one. She continued to lay on the guilt, explaining that my gap was "history in my mouth"...

There you have it folks! In some parts of Japan, having crooked and black teeth showed signs of sexual maturity and strength. This practice is dying down and now strongly embraced by some older Vietnamese ladies and some youth in japan who even goes to the dentist to have their teeth chipped to look crooked. Once again, there's so much cultural significance attached to teeth in a lot of societies around the world but what is their clinical significance or impact on their oral health? This is something that I would love to pursue deeply in future!
Thanks for reading and let me know what you think about the diastema in the comment section below especially if you are a dental professional.  

Got Our Dental Hygiene Tool Set( Instrument Box) finally!

 I always try or promise myself to update here on my progress in Hygiene school at least every week. But does that happen? Your guess is as good as mine but hey since everyone has an excuse I got mine. My plan is to write every weekend but mostly after my job I'm so tired and always getting ready for Monday exams and before I know it the week is on.
Things are getting a bit hectic as we are now almost having a quiz or exam everyday and assignments that always due the next day. Good thing, we got warned as how hectic it can get but the interesting part is that we are not even started. That is just in 2 units. Dental head and neck anatomy and Dental morphology. We have done so much on teeth identification from deciding which is from right side and which is from left side. Not an easy feat as mostly the anterior lateral incisors looks almost the same. So much fun identifying them.

     The most interesting part was receiving the  dental kits in a box yesterday. We also got our uniform and loupes as well as our typodonts ( Model mouth with teeth). We have the calculus on the teeth on the typodonts which I presume we are going to be scaling in future. There are so many tools in the box that it's hard to believe we are going to using all of them. There's a feeling of joy on carrying that box and knowing soon  we will be masters of all the tools in there. I'm so excited for this new great turn and I plan to open the box on Sunday and try to 'play' with some of the instruments in there. I will be making a blog to explain what each tool is about  and what we use it for as we learn.
PS: for the first time since we got to hygiene school we went to the clinic today. Bliss. We just got to sit in the seat and examine each others TMJ joint for evaluation of any Tempo-mandibular Joint disorder. Of course my former friend turned friend - Marc made a big issue while examining me and claiming I have all kind of disorders :) . All in all we had a great day and since next semester we will have a pre clinic course we will be getting ready to go!

Made in Kenya! (Our new scrubs)

                                                                  😎😎

So, finally our official 3^rd semester started last week and tomorrow we will have one week of third semester under our belts. Best feeling ever about this semester is we are at last getting to do something that is truly and directly related to teeth. By this, I mean Dental Morphology and Head & Neck anatomy.  The other building subjects are not lesser it’s just that I personally do not see the direct relationship between the molecular structure of wax and teeth.  

So far what has really impressed me is all the parts that we have just in our face. Philtrum, wait, what again?! Vermilion zone, vermi what? Stensen’s papilla…and the list go on and on. Being an avid reader of almost anything that has pages on it I must admit I have never come across any of these words until last week. There’s simply no clear way to describe the excitement and feeling of knowing that the little shallow depression extending from the area below the middle of the nose to the center of the upper lip has a name. Philtrum! We have body parts that’s we see every day and take for granted or assume they have no name. And I’m not even talking about the inside of the mouth yet. To me, that’s truly learning and enjoyable. I found that there is even whole research papers dedicated to that little shallow depression describing its role in smile and many other interesting theories.  Many more words and new parts are all fun to learn of course until we get to the exam room and the silly brain wants to assume you have never seen, leave alone heard any of those parts.

Okay, back to the title above. Kenya. Beautiful country where I was born and raised. Right under the equator so that means weather that is never too dry, neither too wet. Never too hot or too cold. Throughout the year. In short, anyone  dream weather. This is not a travel blog for sure but Kenya to me remains ONE OF the most beautiful places there is in the world (and trust me, I have traveled a bit of this world). Of course CNN and other international media houses won’t say or show any of this. Again, like any other nation, there are challenges in Kenya. Political, social and even economic just like every other nation. So what is Kenya doing in our dental hygiene blog?

Today I had a chance to go and get measurements for my uniform (Black scrubs and a white coat). See? Every day it feels like we are truly getting closer to our profession.  One of my classmates was in there trying her outfit and so I got to chat with the very friendly and nice old lady who runs the place as we waited for my other classmate to get done. She asked where I was from as I had an accent. Now, oversensitive people with low self-esteem will immediately get in self-defense mode whenever someone mentions that they have an accent and try to find out about where they come from. I have seen people label others as racist if they observe that they have accent. There’s dumb and then there’s plain dumb. This lies in the plain dumb.

 The oxford dictionary defines accent distinctive mode of pronunciation of a language, especially one associated with a particular nation, locality, or social class. E.g. Strong German accent, strong American accent and strong other languages accents. So whenever a person asks me where I am from due to my accent I find that person to be honest, straightforward and confident. I do not imply that those who do not ask are any opposite of this. Those who ask what accent was that after someone leaves are the ones who might need to work on themselves. Anyway, so I got talking to the lady about where I’m originally from. I like to tease people by first telling them that I’m from somewhere like Germany or Sweden and love the look of confusion on their face. So we got talking about Kenya with her and how I ended up here in the states. Immigration is a touchy issue for some people due to their personal reasons but I find it interesting to discuss about my decision and reason to come to this country (Legally of course! In case the border and customs people are reading J) And contrary to what my desk mate and former friend turned friend Marc says, I did not swim across the ocean to this place! Sometimes I will tease him and say how his American Accent is so strong I can barely understand him and so he needs to talk to me in Swahili. Keeps the hours rolling when the school day seem to have 37 hours.

So back to the lady at the store, after discussing about Kenya and how cost of living is over there compared to here I went and fitted my uniform and since I love business and I want to always find out where stuff is made (In case of a business chance) I checked the tag on the scrubs only to see ‘MADE IN KENYA’.  Interestingly, I happen to know the exact place in Nairobi (Mombasa road) where they produce all kind of export stuff in Kenya. I just never thought that that my Dental Hygiene scrub would be made in Nairobi and I would come to wear it in Erie! As a side note, the people who work in those companies are paid every day at the end of a work shift from 8Am to 5AM. Is it true they are paid like 5 dollars every day? That’s right!  But before anyone takes you on a guilt ride( I have heard all kind of claims, That these things from 3^rd world countries are made by kids….that the people working in them are not paid enough)  That mostly, is not true. People working in these companies are not paid less. The cost of living is almost as low as the payment they get. If someone for example living in Kenya makes 5 dollars at the end of a shift, and someone in the USA makes $80 at end of a 8 hr. shift they have almost earned same amount of money to meet there family needs. Most house rents will go for  25 dollars a month in some parts of Nairobi and so within 5 days someone has rent paid, and if you compare with someone paying 400$ a month over  here for rent, same thing, within 5 days their rent is paid too. So, in the long run everything else balances out and the only people really making any money is the big business importing those clothes.  It got me thinking that if our Mrs. O our new director allowed me to bring my own uniform from home, now that they are made in Kenya, I would end up paying like 5 bucks for them! 

The new scrubs with the made in Kenya tag

Well, that got me a little excited and a bit confused too on what side to support since I’m big supporter of bringing back all the companies and jobs to good old USA.

Anyway, I can’t wait to don those scrubs and get my tool kit and get inside those mouths!

I will be posting about our upcoming trip to work with cadavers for our Head and Neck anatomy at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM). Thank you for reading and drop comments below.

Bye 2016 and Hello 2017!

Time has flown. I can’t believe it’s been over a month since I posted my last post. Time! Time! Last semester was shorter than expected. Shorter in the aspect of time. We had our finals on 22^nd of December before breaking for the 1 week chrismas holiday. My favorite holiday of the year.

But, about last semester, things got a little complicated with chemistry since we went from general chemistry to chemistry for dental hygienist which is primarily focused on organic chemistry and biochemistry.  The most challenging part was to wrap up about a chapter or 2 per lesson which I think is a good indication that things can get super busy real quick. Luckily the Profs turned out to be kind enough to guide us through. Sometimes there were feelings of frustration when questions were not responded to appropriately maybe because there was no time and there was a lot to cover. We however had a great semester.

  

The highlight of the semester was the ugly sweater party we held and my buddy Marc emerged as the best (Meaning the person with the ugliest sweater. Turns out that in our class, we have terrific cooks. We had all kind of food and we even posed for a class photo. The first one ever. I’m sure there will be group activities this semester as they help us let off the steam from all the studies and help us create stronger bonds as classmates, colleagues and future dental hygiene professionals. 

The Ugly sweater party with Dr. Jabra.

A lot of us did very well on the challenging classes of anatomy and Physiology 2 and the Chemistry for dental Hygienist. Personally I scored 2 straight A’s of 98 and 97 in Anatomy and Chem respectively. This semester we will be doing our 2 first core courses for dental hygienist which is Tooth morphology and Head and Neck anatomy. We also have a Microbiology class.  I’m lucky to have taken microbiology sometimes back and will be exempted from the class so that way I have times to focus on the 2 core courses which are normally focused on in the board exams. I must also point out that since we started the course we have been taught by the same teachers and this helps develop consistency. We are going to have them for this semester too so it helps to master their teaching, their pace and their way of setting exams.