Almost Done with Dental Hygiene School!!

First post of 2018!
Things have been moving so fast that I barely had time to post a blog post. First Semester of 2018 ends tomorrow (Monday 2/12/18). This was officially one of the hardest semesters we had in DH school so far. Dental pharmacology 2, Dental local Anesthesia 2, Periodontics 3 and dental seminar 4 while still seeing patients in clinic was really tasking. Good thing is that we at least have finished that and we will soon be  officially able to administer local anesthesia to our patients in the clinic.

Getting my Sealants done by Brissa.

 It also means we don't have to go home numb every Wed after practicing getting each other numb.
We have less than 5 months to complete our 21 months of study to become RDH (That comes after passing the board exams). They are life changing 21 months. You learn so much not just academic but also professionally  as well as social as you basically almost live with your classmates. You spend almost all your days together and its especially not easy in some cases. 

I decided not to go for Board Exam Review and bought a book which I'm using to review for my exam. I also have an App that has really good questions and also relying on previous class notes to get ready for the exam which I plan to take in July. June 1st is the day to take the clinical board exam and so already placing a plan in place to find a patient who will fit clinical class 4 level patient who is required for board exams. Its not  uncommon for students to pay $100 to get the patients to come in for the screening and see who fits as an exam candidate.

I'm also looking forward to Mom-N_PA dental Mission in May which is a volunteer chance to help people in the community. Last year it was in Erie but this year it's in Reading PA. Anyone interested can register here. It was such a satisfying and life changing experience.
We have a day off on Tuesday before the start of another semester and I look forward to spend the day getting my citizenship interview done. 

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!
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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.