We have been in school for a week now and already I feel slightly overwhelmed with everything going on. Let me break it down for you:
Classes:
- Radiology II
- Oral Surgery II
- Oral Pathology II
- Endodontics II
- Restorative Dentistry V
- Medicine II
- Periodontology/Treatment Planning
We have just started and there is a fair amount of reading so far. RD V is basically reading a lot of current articles in dentistry. Lots of publications and research articles about dentistry. The ‘classics’ if you will of dentistry. Oral Path is covering the other half of Neville’s Oral Pathology book that we didn’t cover the first time in class and is taught very well. It includes differential diagnosis workshops and enough disgusting pictures to last a lifetime. The other classes are pretty much self explanatory. It will be busy with this classes alone.
Clinic:
- Open to Juniors on M, W, F with two time slots each day. 8:30 to 11:30am and 1:30 to 4:30pm. With 125 Juniors and 125 Seniors all vying for a spot - it can be a headache at times getting a chair. Especially in limited chair clinics like Tx Planning and Perio. The way it works is this: Every afternoon at about 4:30pm new time slots open up 7 days in advance. First come, first serve. So if you want a chair in perio, 7 days from now, you will have to wait until the system opens the chairs up at 4:30pm TODAY and then reserve your chair for SEVEN days in the future. Lots of dental schools do it this way. Some dental schools open the chair reserve time at 6am. I would rather stay at school and reserve a chair than wake up early and drive to school to get a chair. I am curious as to what other schools do? I know the best way is to have YOUR OWN chair and schedule your life away at your own accord. Maybe Temple is headed in this direction? I doubt it, but it could very well be done with some patience and good leadership.
- I have about 15 patients right now and feel slightly overwhelmed. Everyday I am learning something new that improves my general knowledge (this task is easy to accomplish), improves my skills, or improves some other aspect of dentistry in which I am lacking. The key is to not get too comfortable. If you get too comfortable it means you are not moving forward. Right now I have a lot of patients in Perio. Some items in the treatment plans of my patients are extractions, crowns, removable partials and full partials and some cavities that need to be taken care of. I should be bus for a while with these patients. We have a lot of requirements to do at Temple and these patients will only wittle away at the amount, but I think it is a good start.
Clubs:
- It is fun to get involved in clubs at your school. I wrote about the Haiti Club I am involved in a few days ago. I am also a part of the Oral Surgery Honor Society as co-treasurer, I am a part of the practice management club, a member of XIP fraternity, and a member of the ADEA committee of continuing education. It does take a little time but overall these are rewarding experiances which allow me to interact with other students and get away from the hustle and bustle of trying to get A’s all the time.
Family
- Yes, I am married. We both have busy lives and it is nice to go on a date once a week on Friday night to hang out. My wife stays home with our two pets boys most of the day and does a wonderful job. We have two boys age 4 and 3 who think that life is thier little playground. They are good at wrestling me to the ground when I come home from school and making messes. They keep me grounded - which is a good thing because sometimes I come home from school with a skewed viewpoint of what is important (like being called a ‘dumbsh#@’ during treatment planning) and they help me to see what is REALLY important. For instance: Everything makes better sense when you come home from a frustrating days work and you find a letter on your study desk with a coloring page of Optimus Prime and He-Man in action poses next to each other and a goofy signature in the corner of the page from your 4 year old. No professor can ever defeat that. I would love to see Dr.” ______” take on Optimus Prime and He-Man at the same time. Treatment plan that outcome
All in all it should be a fun year with lots of fun things going on and a lot to learn. Remember that I will try to post cases online (if I am legally able to do so) so you can follow my various adventures in the clinic. Have a good year and stay motivated!
5 responses so far ↓
1 DentNEWS // Sep 3, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Hi. Greetings from Greece
You were wondering what other schools do with the Clinic’ Schedule. Well let me inform you that here in Greece there are 2 dental schools (Athens and Thessaloniki)
In Athens the Clinic areas are united and each one of the students has his/her chair and makes his schedule alone.
In Thessaloniki each Subject has its own clinic and the schedule doesn’t exist. Every clinic has it’s own program and different hours and days that slots are open. So it like running around all the clinics to try to find a spot to work. Some times students come from 4:00 am (!!!) to find a chair to work… !
I forgot to tell you that each school has almost 450 students (4th year, 5th year, 6th year) that have to find a chair.
Some little infos about Greece…
see you … around !!!
2 Ανταπόκριση από την Οδοντιατρική του Temple, Philadelphia « DentNEWS | Οδοντιατρική // Sep 3, 2008 at 1:15 pm
[...] have been in school for a week now and already I feel slightly overwhelmed with everything going on. Let me break it [...]
3 jj // Oct 4, 2008 at 10:24 am
Hello from Melbourne, Australia! In Melbourne University, we have set clinical time slots like you (perio, endo, fixed pros, restorative /gp, etc) which we are rostered onto at a regular basis. We are allocated our own chair at our rostered clinic session, so getting a chair is usually no trouble. However we do need to request for patients, and schedule them in ourselves.
Dentistry is also offered as an undergraduate degree here.
I love your photos! And looking forward to sharing knowledge/experiences.
4 angie dunn, dds // Aug 20, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Interesting about having to sign up for chairs. The University of Washington is very different. We have our own chairs with two sessions per day: (9:30-12:30 and 1:30-4:30)
In our own chairs we are assigned three restorative sessions per week and one perio session per week. Pros must be scheduled as an “extra” session in an available chair up to two weeks in advance. Other clinics that we get scheduled in include our emergency clinic (one session per week every quarter), oral surgery (one session per week, only 2 quarters required), pedo (20 total sessions…either a 2 week block of solid pedo or one session per week for two quarters), endo (one session per week IF you have a patient that needs endo).
Our requirements are this:
PERIO:
~3 patients through 3 rounds of maintenance
~3 patients through diagnosis, at least 2 quads of Sc/RP, and a re-evaluation
~attendance of 8 sessions per quarter
~1 perio surgery
ENDO
~ 15 canals
~ one single canal and one molar competency (molar competency can’t be done until at least one multicanal case has been completed)
~ assist 1 endo surgery
PROS
~ 9 arches ( 2 CD’s, 2 RPD’s, 2 ICD’s and the other 3 can be anything)
(Each appliance is 1 arch, relines are 1/2 arch credit)
RESTORATIVE
~we also had a point system and you have to get 70% or more of a set point value
~ Class II amalgam and composite competency
~ Class III composite competency
~ Crown competency
~ Attendance requirement of 90%
ORTHO:
~ 1 limited case -OR-
~ observe comprehensive case in grad ortho for 3 consecutive visits
ORAL SURGERY:
~ 2 quarters, attendance at 20 sessions
no requirement for number of ext’s
PEDO:
~2 quarters, attendance at 20 sessions
EMERGENCY:
~ 6 quarters, attendance of about 60 sessions
~ 1 double booked summer quarter of an additional 20 sessions
5 angie dunn, dds // Aug 20, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Whoa, that was long….sorry
I find it interesting how other schools work. I am a new partner at an office and was talking to another recent grad from Case Western…so different!
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