Rotations

I've finished most of my rotations this semester. Overall, I have enjoyed everyone of my rotations and I have learned from every experience. In general practice many of the dental students where helpful in explaining techniques of local anesthesia. They were able to tell me why you would inject a particular site oppose to another site. Every student had their own technique to giving the injection. Some used topical before and others did not. The various procedures that I assisted in has help me have a better understanding of the procedures and why it would take place. In oral surgery I was able to see patients will their whole face swollen. Mentally disabled patients, and also patients from jail. We were able to work with various individuals with different backgrounds. The stereotype of inmates are that they are scary or bad individuals. But I believed that most where very friendly and where happy to be out of the jail cell. They were very well behaved and nice. In general we where not dealing with people who murdered others, but mostly the ones who dealt with drugs problems. My pedo rotation is coming up this week, and I hope it goes well.

Competencies

So there's is only about a month and a couple weeks left until this semester is over. At the moment, I am very worried about not completing all my competencies. Since there is a shortage on patients, I feel as if every time I complete a competency I must pass it on the first try or I won't be able to meet the expectation of competency fulfillment set by the school. It is very frustrating at times, when we don't have patients which leads to not enough practice. I remember a senior telling me, "don't worry about failing your competencies, I failed my hard tissue competency 10 times before I passed". And in my head all I could think is, "I wish I had 10 patients to fail my competencies 10 times with". Shortage, shortage, shortage= less practice, which makes me feel if I don't pass the first time then I am SOL (so out of luck)! I just hope things pick up within this month.