Sunday, January 31, 2010
I may be a little premature in writing this blog, but, as this is my last semester in school, I'm gonna chance it! The last two years has certainly been long and difficult, but I know that every moment will be worth it! I've made a lot of good friends that I know I will never forget. I hope that we are able to keep in touch after school!
Our first semester was pretty easy, looking back now at least. We only had 4 classes: Orofacial Anatomy, Foundations of Dental Hygiene, Radiology I and Oral Histology and Embryology. We spent most of that semester learning infection control procedures and how to set up and break down our chairs. We also learned some basic patient care, like oral cancer screenings.
Our second semester was, by far, the hardest semester. Everyone in our class made it through though! We took Radiology II, Periodontology, Dental Materials, Pharmacology, Dental Hygiene II, and our clinic. We were certainly busy that semester! I remember spending most of that semester listening to the second year students and wishing I was where they were. Clinic scared most of us to death, but we were learning a lot of neat stuff. This was the semester that we learned the basics of our instrumentation and began working on each other. It was during this time that I first felt calculus and learned to explore a mouth without causing my patient excruciating pain. We also learned the basics of probing and calculus removal. I was amazed at how difficult it was to control the polisher! In Dental Materials we were learning how to take impressions, and it was here that I actually burned my throat by taking so many impressions on myself. At the end of this semester we saw our first real, live, non-student patients. I was extremely nervous, but did well.
So, we began our summer semester with 17 students instead of 18. We were sad, but we knew Karyn had made the right decision for her family. Summer was a great time for us. We were able to learn a lot from being in clinic, and we had a lot of extra attention from our teachers since we were the only students at school. We were still seeing some pretty easy patients at this point, but we were definitely expanding our skills. Unfortunately, we lost another two students at the end of this semester, Anne and Tanya.
We really enjoyed the time away from school! Unfortunately, we were back at school all too soon. About halfway through the semester, we lost another student from our class. Shelley was once again kicked out of the program. It reminded us all to work hard and just keep our heads down till it was over! For me, the semester went by so fast! Before I knew it we were taking finals and looking forward to Christmas break. Sadly, at the end of this semester we lost another student. Deb was not allowed to continue on to our last semester. I think the loss of her hit all of us the hardest. Deb was a great person and would have made a wonderful hygienist. I wish her the best in life and hope she keeps in touch with us! 
So, we continue on.....pressing forward until we reach our goal. We are so close now we can almost taste it! I still look forward to the day that I can post my graduation pictures and sign my name with RDH following it. I know my classmates all feel the same! Here's one last picture of all of us in clinic.
From the back left: Carrie, Cheri, Alex, Alicia, Sarah, me, Rachel, Danielle, Melissa, Nikki, Mallory, Autumn, Kecia and Amber.
Our first semester was pretty easy, looking back now at least. We only had 4 classes: Orofacial Anatomy, Foundations of Dental Hygiene, Radiology I and Oral Histology and Embryology. We spent most of that semester learning infection control procedures and how to set up and break down our chairs. We also learned some basic patient care, like oral cancer screenings.
Our second semester was, by far, the hardest semester. Everyone in our class made it through though! We took Radiology II, Periodontology, Dental Materials, Pharmacology, Dental Hygiene II, and our clinic. We were certainly busy that semester! I remember spending most of that semester listening to the second year students and wishing I was where they were. Clinic scared most of us to death, but we were learning a lot of neat stuff. This was the semester that we learned the basics of our instrumentation and began working on each other. It was during this time that I first felt calculus and learned to explore a mouth without causing my patient excruciating pain. We also learned the basics of probing and calculus removal. I was amazed at how difficult it was to control the polisher! In Dental Materials we were learning how to take impressions, and it was here that I actually burned my throat by taking so many impressions on myself. At the end of this semester we saw our first real, live, non-student patients. I was extremely nervous, but did well.
As we prepared for our summer semester we were all exstatic that no one had been kicked out of the program yet! Our class started with 18 students, but right before summer semester started, one of our classmates decided to drop out. She gave birth to a baby girl and decided that she wanted to spend more time with her kids. Here's some pictures of our class shower for her.
So, we began our summer semester with 17 students instead of 18. We were sad, but we knew Karyn had made the right decision for her family. Summer was a great time for us. We were able to learn a lot from being in clinic, and we had a lot of extra attention from our teachers since we were the only students at school. We were still seeing some pretty easy patients at this point, but we were definitely expanding our skills. Unfortunately, we lost another two students at the end of this semester, Anne and Tanya.We started our third semester down three students, but, we had gained one girl, Shelley, that had been kicked out previously and had decided to try again. This semester was a stresser for all of us. We were seeing difficult patients and now had the added stress of needing to meet requirements in order to continue on to our last semester. Rarely did a clinic day pass by without our teachers informing us, again, that we would not be allowed to continue unless we met ALL of our semester requirements. This was also the semester that we learned how unrealible patients can be! There were many times that patients would simply not show up, even after confirming their appointment. This is very stressful, because if our chair is empty for any reason we would loose 100 points and an opportunity to meet another requirement.
However, our class really grew closer to one another throughout this time. We took a trip up to Tan-tar-a for our annual Dental Hygiene session. Though the hotel and actual meetings sucked, we had a good time hanging out together. Here's some pictures from our trip.
However, our class really grew closer to one another throughout this time. We took a trip up to Tan-tar-a for our annual Dental Hygiene session. Though the hotel and actual meetings sucked, we had a good time hanging out together. Here's some pictures from our trip.
We really enjoyed the time away from school! Unfortunately, we were back at school all too soon. About halfway through the semester, we lost another student from our class. Shelley was once again kicked out of the program. It reminded us all to work hard and just keep our heads down till it was over! For me, the semester went by so fast! Before I knew it we were taking finals and looking forward to Christmas break. Sadly, at the end of this semester we lost another student. Deb was not allowed to continue on to our last semester. I think the loss of her hit all of us the hardest. Deb was a great person and would have made a wonderful hygienist. I wish her the best in life and hope she keeps in touch with us! We came back from Christmas break with only 14 students. All together, we lost 5 students from our program. We all sincerely hope that will be all that we lose. We are all hoping that this semester goes by as fast as the last one did. We're all focused on passing our board examinations. We are in clinic now more than ever. We are seeing very difficult patients and we're honing our skills. There's not much left for our teachers to formally teach us, so life seems pretty easy. Here's some pictures of us in clinic on the day we cleaned each other's teeth.
So, we continue on.....pressing forward until we reach our goal. We are so close now we can almost taste it! I still look forward to the day that I can post my graduation pictures and sign my name with RDH following it. I know my classmates all feel the same! Here's one last picture of all of us in clinic.
From the back left: Carrie, Cheri, Alex, Alicia, Sarah, me, Rachel, Danielle, Melissa, Nikki, Mallory, Autumn, Kecia and Amber. The Dental Hygiene class of 2010
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