Tag Archives: temple

First Duty Day: Admissions

I had an admissions duty day last week with a few of my classmates. We basically helped a junior student, also on admissions duty, admit a new patient into the school. Here is how it went:
We showed up on time, signed our name for attendance, and received a 100 page packet on the admissions clinic. We get a packet like this from almost all the clinics totaling about 1,000 pages, or so it seems (about 9 different clinics each with their own packet). I don’t know when we are expected to read all of these packets considering we are getting ready for the boards on top of some random quizzes and tests. They do seem like helpful resources if you can sift through all the filler material.
After we got our packet we started to help out the upperclassman. I must say it is a little nerve wracking. Some good advice I have been given is to be confident even though sometimes you have no idea what you are doing. I was asked to check the blood pressure of the new patient. After fumbling through a small some small brain farts of putting the blood pressure cuff on upside down and not being able to inflate the arm cuff (screw in the valve idiot!) I was able to get the blood pressure. Phew! Some of these things (taking blood pressure, etc.) we haven’t done for a year, and after 40 credits of various classes these things get put into a brain .zip file and are compressed for later use.
The patient obviously fills out a new patient medical history form and this is all reviewed with them. Everything from allergies to hospitalizations and medications. An extraoral examination is performed followed by an intraoral examination in which gross defects are noted in the chart. After everything is reviewed by the student and checked over and written down, the student finds a faculty member and presents the case.
You give the patients age, sex, blood pressure, chief complaint, and a few other things like medications, findings from the exam, and medical history. The faculty member may then quiz you on various things that they find are suitable for you to learn. We weren’t really quizzed for our session, but we did learn some things. Our instructor gave a very good example of a head and neck exam, we auscultated the TMJ, which really isn’t necessary, but it was cool to hear clicking in the left TMJ and nothing in the right. This clicking did not bother the patient by the way and is actually quite common. Then we got to perform the intraoral examination ourselves. This poor patient had about 12 fingers in her mouth back to back for about 40 minutes. The patient was, well, patient and had no problem helping us out.
After we were done we took the patient to radiology and handed their chart over for xrays. That concluded our session. The patient will then be assigned a student over the next two weeks who will take care of their needs.

Temple University School of Dentistry Wildlife

Technically there are no wild animals running around the school, unless you can catch a lost cockroach or two. This is not to dog on Temple. Every building in the city has cockroaches in it, that is just part of life. The cool trick is to see if you can actually spot one.
I have never seen one alive, but I did manage to snap a picture of a dead one. I found this guy in the hallway. I think he ran through some bug spray and his adventure through the dental school didn’t last too long. I bet he never thought he would become immortalized on DMDstudent.com though.
Some of my classmates have seen some scurrying through the hallways, and one claims to have seen a rat crossing an empty hallway in the distance, but I won’t believe that one until I see it. As long as they stay away from my food and my back pack, I’ll be fine. I wouldn’t want to bring any hitchhikers home!
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Shooting Outside of Temple Dental by SEPTA Police

While sitting in a removable partial denture class today I couldn’t help but wish I was outside, enjoying the sun and avoiding a shooting?!? Yes, you heard it here first folks. A shooting occurred on the corner of Allegheny and Broad today in broad daylight on the same corner where the dental school is located. In case the link is broken in the future I have pasted the article here for you to read, along with a reference photo. Luckily, only the bad guy was injured.

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A SEPTA police officer shot a suspected gunman Wednesday afternoon on a subway platform in North Philadelphia, police said.

The shooting happened at about 12:45 p.m. on the northbound side at the Broad Street Line’s Alllegheny Station platform, located at Broad Street and Allegheny Avenue.

“Shortly after I came up off the subway, I came over to the wall and I heard four consecutive shots ring out,” witness Eddie Steward said.SEPTA officials said two plainclothes detectives spotted the unidentified man smoking in between two rail cars and he was asked to stop but did not comply. When the officers and the man then got off at the stop, the man became confrontational and allegedly pointed a gun at the officers.

One officer then fired several shots, striking the 23-year-old man once in the shoulder.

Chopper 10 caught the man being brought out of the underground platform on a stretcher and being placed into an ambulance.Authorities said he was conscious when taken to Temple University Hospital and later listed in guarded condition.A SEPTA official said subway trains would not stop at the Allegheny Station while police investigate.SEPTA said it will run buses between Girard and Erie avenues until the scene is cleared at the Allegheny Station. They did not estimate how long the investigation might take.

Police said a .38-caliber gun was recovered at the scene. The names of the suspect and the officers were not released. SEPTA is continuing to investigate the shooting.The shooting comes on the heels of a rash of violence on the Broad Street line.SEPTA police said gangs of kids have attacked other teens at least four times over the past week.

Christopher Ebanks, 14, was the latest victim of that string of attacks, this one at the Broad and Lehigh station.”They just beat him unconsciously,” said his aunt, Beveral Mansaray. “He has head trauma. They stomped his face. His whole body is sore.”Wednesday night, doctors at St. Christopher’s Children’s Hospital are keeping a close eye on Ebanks. Family members said he has a broken nose, a swollen jaw and can hardly speak.

SEPTA police sources told Hairston that they are undermanned, and that’s why no one was around to stop this most recent rash of attacks.SEPTA’s chief press officer, Jim Whitaker, refused to go on camera but said the police force is not undermanned. He also said there are undercover officers permanently assigned to the trains. Philadelphia police ride the trains to help with security, and K-9 units are used as well on a regular basis.

So the NBC 10 Investigators took cameras undercover on the Broad Street line, riding the entire 13 miles from Proad and Pattison north to the Fern Rock Transportation Center.The NBC 10 crew passed 13 stops before spotting a uniformed officer on the train or the platform, and a K-9 unit was never seen.

According to a SEPTA memo obtained by the NBC 10 Investigators, the authority’s deputy chief, David Scott, instructed the department to use uniformed officers as plain clothes cops periodically “so at least the bad guys think there are plain clothes out there.”And Philadelphia police told Hairston that they do not assigned officers to ride the trains.

SEPTA police sources said Wednesday’s shooting was a clear sign of just how dangerous the subway can be, and an even clearer sign of why SEPTA needs to beef up its force, Hairston reported.

The news story can be found here at NBC10.