Fundamentals

It's been a week or two since I have updated.  We have now finished both our Ethics and Culture classes.  I would say a majority of the class got an A in both.  Last week we started our "Fundamentals I" class.  Essentially, we have two separate 1-hour lectures everyday until Christmas covering many of the basic sciences like Biochem, genetics, histology, and some basic physiology.  We have started with biochem and will cover about everything you would cover in an undergrad biochem class over the next 4 weeks.  We will have  a test every other week that covers about 20 lectures.  I am attempting to stay as caught up as possible and study 1-2 hours a day just for this class, but on a week like this one where we have 2 other tests, it is easy to get 8-10 lectures behind in no time.  Luckily, this 3-day weekend will give plenty of time to read up and study it all before the test next Thursday.  We started our communications class, and it is just pass/fail, so basically we just show up once a week and participate. In our pre-clinic class, we have started waxing premolars.... for the majority of the class with no waxing experience (myself included), it is incredibly tough.  Granted, each week it seems like all of our hand skills are improving, but all of the D3s and D4s assure us that a person's waxing skills have little bearing on how good they will be at the real procedures.

Well, the past week or so since I updated has been fairly easy.  We have had a couple of easy tests/papers, and have been waxing more and more.  We also finished impressions, mounting the impressions on an articulator, etc. and I will post a picture of that soon.  Tomorrow we have our white coat ceremony, so after our test from 1-3 we will change and head back to the auditorium for the ceremony itself.  This is our last "free" weekend before our fundamentals class starts, so our class is throwing a kegger Friday.  A lot of people comment how "ready" they are for the hard sciences to get here and be done with ethics and sociology... I wonder how long until they regret that.  Starting next week, our schedule will look something like this:
MWF-
10-12 - Fundamentals
12-1 - Lunch
1-5 - Clinical Skills or Pre-Clinical Dentistry

T/Th
8-10- Communication or Evidence-based dentistry
10-12 - Fundamentals
12-1 - Lunch
1-5 - Clinical/PCD

So basically, we have heavy sciences at least 2 hours every morning, and our tests in there will be every other week.  Shoot an e-mail or comment with any questions or info.

Today we had a relatively easy sociology test that mainly focused on class differences dealing with oral care and healthcare in general, and it also covered some patient communication stuff.  Waxing teeth today was pretty frustrating.  I am new to all of this, and acquiring hand skills isn't an easy process so far.  People who have worked in a lab by far (only a few) have a pretty big advantage, but I'm sure it will even out soon enough.  Next week, our scrubs will come in.  Everybody in our school wears matching dark green scrubs with your name and class (Class of 2016), so we are looking forward to that.  When they come in, we will be wearing those basically everyday.  Next week is one of our last light weeks.  All we have is an essay due in ethics, so over the weekend I will start on that and play with these teeth to get the hang of waxing.  About to meet about 10-12 of the guys to play basketball then maybe hit up a bar later.  We have to have fun before Fundamentals (our rigorous science class encompassing micro, biochem, etc) starts.

First Couple of Weeks

The third week of D1 is coming to an end.  So far we have had 2 tests and our 3rd tomorrow.  This first month is essentially a transition where we take an ethics class and sociology class to make us "well-rounded" and drill professionalism into our brains.  We also have "Entry Level Clinical Skills" and "PCD" (pre-clinical dentistry) in the afternoons.  These two will last throughout the entire semester.  In ELCS, we learn basics like impressions, assisting, basic radiology, and things like that.  The course director for this harps on professionalism, and we are graded on our grooming, facial hair, and especially clothing. Dress code is business casual until our scrubs come in, so guys are in slacks, dress shoes, collared shirts, and can't have facial hair unless its neatly trimmed.  Girls wear business casual dresses/skirts.

Our 2nd day in PCD, we began waxing our first tooth.  It is a huge learning curve.  Essentially, we take our tool and melt some wax then attempt to carve a part of the missing tooth by looking at a model.  Then, when you think it looks close, you show it to one of the 3 instructors, who point out numerous things to correct.  You try to fix these and ask again but hear the same result.  We worked on a ~6 mm area for almost 3 hours.  It's frustrating, but way better than sitting through a lecture. Plus, this isn't something you have to take home and work on or study.  It's almost a break from lectures.