They say you always remember your first...

Well, as you know, sometimes when you go to the dentist you have to get an injection before they work on you. That means at some point in dental school we learn about giving injections. We talked about how to do them and the technique, but once that is said and done, it was time to actually give an injection to someone. So instead of using a patient, we give injections to each other. Last week was my week to learn to give injections, and also receive an injection from a fellow student. Fun right?

Actually, it wasn't too bad at all. Giving injections is a pretty simple process, once you know what you are doing. We just didn't know what we were doing. But that didn't stop us, and in the end it was just fine. No one died, no one got facial paralysis, but we all got numb. Also as part of this lab, we administered Nitrous Oxide to each other. I have never had "laughing gas" so it was a new experience for me. It didn't really make me laugh, it just felt like I was heavy, and everything seemed to slow down a little. My voice sounded funny, to me at least, and my fingers and feet were tingly.

Anyway, it was a good experience and getting to do something hands on is always the best way for me to learn anyway. I just won't tell my first patient that they are only the 2nd person I have ever injected.

Here are a few pics of the injections. They are a little small, but you get the idea.

Getting some instructions on injection technique.

Prepping the "patient", Jill. She was in good spirits considering she knew I had never done this before.

"Bullseye!" Success.

My first paying dental gig

Yesterday I had my first dental related job that I got paid for. I helped out a Senior here at school with his North Eastern Regional Board Exam (NERB for short). I spent the day sucking saliva and handing him instruments that he needed in order to help him work quickly and efficiently and in turn he paid me for my time. I think it went pretty well and I am pretty sure he passed. All his work looked good. I had assisted for NERBs before, last year, but I enjoyed it more this year because I knew all the stuff that he was doing and why he was doing it. It was a good experience to get me ready for clinic and taking my own board exams one day.

Well I am officially on SPRING BREAK!! I am looking forward to a little time off to relax and recuperate. We leave tomorrow to spend the week in Florida. We are pretty excited to get to the beach and enjoy some warmer weather. It should be a fun trip. Look for some pictures to appear on our blogs in the near future.

The 2nd Year

Well they say that the 2nd year is the busiest, at least when it comes to non-clinical stuff. I have also found that it seems to go the fastest. It is now March and the Spring semester will be over in April.

I haven't posted anything on here in a long time, so I am going to try and get better at putting some stuff up at least every few weeks or so.

It has been crazy February. I had about 10-11 different tests and quizzes that I had to study for. We had about 2 a weeks and sometime 3. All I can remember about the month of February is looking at the wall above my desk a lot. I spent the whole month studying and cramming. But all in all I have escaped unscathed. I did well on all the tests and I am doing well in all my classes, and despite all the studying that has to be done I am enjoying school. We have a pretty tight knit class and we all help each other get through. Plus we usually keep ourselves pretty entertained in lab while we joke around with each other.

I was thinking the other day that it is going to be kind of sad to go off to a practice somewhere and not have these friends around right there to talk to and have a little fun with.

The other crazy part about Feb. is that we got hit with 2 big snow storms. It pretty much shut the city down for about 3 days. I have several pictures and things to put up and I will try and start doing that more. Look for future posts that have mostly pictures.

Also, since I have been doing such a bad job at blogging, Ashley decided that she was going to start a blog for us to keep people up to date on stuff. Look for that at theschappers.blogspot.com

She will up date there too, and I will focus this blog more on what I am up to with school and those things.

Anyway, just wanted to put something up since it has been so long. Look for more to come soon I hope.