Heather M = Ms. Congeniality

Heather just saved my tail feathers...again!!!  This girl is the sweetest thing on two legs.  I was hopeful that my morning patient would classify as a class III in at least 2 quadrants but as I probed and looked at her xrays, I quickly realized that she had started taking care of her teeth and that she was only a class V.  That is FANTASTIC for her, but I was bummed.  Heather, by contrast, found yet another stunningly difficult patient and because she already has 3 class IVs on her wrap sheet she offered to switch places with me so that I could use him for my class IV project.  Is that not the kindest, most charitable thing to do for a person?  I was super grateful and it gave me the opportunity to get 2 more local anesthesia experiences.  I haven't had anesthesia patients since last semester (which is strange, because last semester I was giving injections left and right).  Apparently, my craft needs a little fine tuning.  This was the first time I had to adjust my approach...but in all fairness, his anatomy was much less distinguished than other patients I have treated.  He was a very cooperative patient, however.  He has never had a cleaning and he was told to have a cleaning before he has some needed extractions.  There were a number of teeth that were so mobile that I was genuinely concerned I would pull them out with my scaler.  I learned last year to use a finger to secure the occlusal plane as I instrument mobile teeth so I did that.  It helped.  I was super happy that I missed zero areas! 

My afternoon patient was a class III...I was super excited.  He has calculus deposits on nearly every tooth surface.  I am using him as my backup for mockboards if I don't find a patient that is a little less challenging before then.  After taking 11 PAs (!!) on the poor man, I brought him back to have him assessed by Dr Hanson.  We agreed that he would be a very challenging patient but she assured me that she was confident that I could definitely pull it off.  We were 45 minutes away from walkout but she asked if I felt I could get through a quadrant of cleaning so that I could evaluate how easily his calculus deposits could be removed.  I decided to give it gusto and to try.  I zoomed and I was pleased with the turnout.  I had to throw in the towel there at the end because we have to absolutely have our patients out by 330.  I would have finished him by using my slimline and afterward, doing a ultra fine exploratory look around, but even without these things I only missed 4 places...and they were miniscule easily picked up with an explorer.  I had debrided all of the deeper root surfaces and the only deposits left were along the margins.  I did learn that its okay to use a nevi along the distal surface of a third molar.  That was surprising and helpful.

Funny story (insert later)