Saturday, March 21, 2009

1/2 way done

Today was the first day of the WREB board exam. I felt very lucky that last night I slept like a baby and woke up feeling great. All of the nervousness, anxiety, butterflies were gone. So much so, that when my patient was a 1/2 hour late and I called to find out she had missed her alarm and had not left her house yet (30 minutes north) I sat and calmly enjoyed one of the bagels I brought.

So, as I said, we started at 9 instead of at 8, two hours after I arrived. The prep (drilling on the tooth) went very well overall, I thought. It was one of my prettiest, at least from a polished/neat perspective. My patient did not like the rubber dam and started crying about an hour in. We talked her down and kept going. When I did the silver filling, I had some trouble and so redid it. However, the next time I thought it was great, took off the rubber dam, and checked with some floss. Oh no! The contact between the teeth was open, meaning the floss slid right through without much resistance (a potential food trap). I had a feeling my patient would not sit through me doing it again (and the rubber dam was already off, too) and after debating with myself, I turned it in.

She came back with a pink slip. That means, "The patient may need follow up treatment" (meaning a new filling) because of the contact (or lack of one). As far as I know, this is not a failure and is only one of many criteria. I am hoping I did well enough on the rest of the tooth that it is okay! If anything, it means I must do very well on tomorrow's cavity since they are grading them together.

I only got really nervous when I was waiting for the examiners to accept my perio patient (my cleaning). She had some very tough tartar to get off but I think I got her teeth overall nice and smooth. I can miss 3 pieces of tartar and still pass. I am hoping I did!

One more day to go...

4 comments:

Dave said...

Good luck tomorrow, it sounds like you are halfway there. BTW, even after twenty four years at my profession I still get nervous prior to a presentation or meeting, but once I am on I get into my 'zone' almost immediately. I think the stess and anxiousness prior, keeps you sharp and with good energy to perform the task at hand.

brenna said...

Wow, I bet she is loving having that 20 years of tartar gone.

shawn said...

YEAH... 1/2 way done!! I don't think that an open contact is reason for failure.. I know a DDS who was taking his boards, and had an exposure, ASKED the examiners if he needed to do endo on the tooth, didn't.. and STILL passed!! WAY worse than an open contact.. big whoop an open contact.. so they have to floss!!
how did the perio pt go???

Erin said...

The perio patient was golden, but her calc was the hardest I've seen. I hope I got it all! There was one tooth that I'm worried may have had my 3 surfaces of left over calc on its own. If nothing else, it was much better than when we started!