I have about 5 minutes to type out a quick blurb of everything that has been going on the past month - and more so the past 4 months prior to starting. Sorry, no editing.
1. Graduated - Finally dental school is over. I guarantee that after four years of residency dental school will have felt like kindergarten, it is rough so far! I submitted my application for dental licensure and registered for controlled substances in a couple of states - one for residency and one for the state I will practice in - don’t want laws to change while I am a resident.
2. Moved 1000 miles west from the east coast. Halfway home. Half of our stuff was ruined - don’t ever use ABF. Oh well.
3. Getting student loans taken care of. Most of them are going into forbearance. Interest will accrue, but I don’t have to pay. A lot of money is racking up - but I am doing what I enjoy.
4. Hospital Orientation. Think of a spastic stray cat on crack - this is how orientation functions at a county hospital. Everyone has different information and almost none of it is right. Luckily I am still employed and I have an ID badge, which means I survived. I still had to iron out wrinkles - like my W-4 was never processed, etc. This stuff is to be expected. I also got certified in ACLS in 6 hours with no prior training. No messing around I guess, this is Cook County.
5. First month - I am in the out patient clinic (OPC) for the first 6 months - with one of these months a rotation at Northwestern, where I will be the only OMFS resident at the hospital. Our county clinic treats about 60-80 patients a day, plus emergencies, trauma when we are on call, and follow-ups. There are usually 2-4 residents for our OPC. This month we are lucky, we have two GPR’s helping in our clinic which helps with the overload of patients. We get through these patients from 8-12 usually, and then have special clinic appointments in the afternoon, mostly our biopsies, 3rds, full mouth extractions, sedations, pre XRT cases, implants, etc.
The biggest pain is getting used to the computer systems, the paperwork, and the way the hospital runs things, as well as H&P’s, trauma consults, notes, etc. We dictate all our OPC patients as well, which took some time to get used to. Speaking a progress note instead of writing one. It goes a lot faster once you get good at it.
We take a ratio of 3:2 trauma and ENT gets the other ‘half’, so we see a little bit more than ENT, which keeps us busy. Today I got consulted on 3 nasal bone fractures, medial orbital wall fracture, two mandibles, and the night is still young. Gotta go, getting beeped.
Join the forum discussion on this post
