First Finished Patient!

I finished my first patient today! It definitely feels good to finish a whole patient and I realized I love return appointments! They are so much better than the initial appointment. I was able to bring my patient back and just start scaling away! No waiting for x-rays, no waiting for an OD check, I can just jump right in and go to town!

I saw what sheet calculus is like for the first time today. My patient didn't have a ton and it wasn't too tenacious, but I learned that you can use the toe of a curet to get the sheet calculus off. Plus another thing I learned is what orthodontic cement looks like on the tooth. It is very tricky and I don't like it! It looks like calculus and even goes chalky white when you dry it, but it is almost impossible to scrape off!! You can tell a difference because ortho cement goes kinda grayish when you scale it, while calculus doesn't. I was scaling this one tooth for like twenty minutes and it wouldn't come off. I asked my instructor about it because I didn't want it to count against me, and she told me that it was ortho cement and the ways to tell the difference.

I also passed off two PE's today, I kinda forgot about PE's last week and didn't pass any off. I wish I could totally forget about PE's! Actually the PE's this semester aren't as bad. Our instructor pretty much just watches how we are scaling and we don't have to worry about memorizing the PE's word for word like last semester. And most of the PE's are just repeats so we've done them once already.