through child-like eyes

Dentistry can be fun. Sure, we have 9 - 5 days, countless preps to do, an endless string of assignments and assessments, late nights trying to finish cramming for a test the next day and prelabs that can take hours to complete (if you want to do a good job of it that is), but i don't think i have ever been through anything where i can learn so much every week.

This year in removable prosthetics we're learning about the denture-making process. We're now at the stage where we fabricate special trays to take an accurate impression of a patient's mouth. Here are the casts, or replicas of an edentulous (toothless) patient's upper and lower jaw:

and here are the casts with finished special trays which will be used to make an even more accurate secondary cast:

As students, we spend hours mixing materials, moulding, shaping, trimming and polishing, to produce the perfect special tray. Or so we hope. Give your special tray to Mr. Brown for corrections, and he'll go zip zip zip through the acrylic and be done! I had to make a tray for the upper jaw and i've spent over 9 hours in total trying to make the perfect base (mine had voids underneath), handle (which ended up being asymmetrical and sloping to one side) and fingerstops (that were too big and too bulky). My special tray by the end of Wednesday:

Messy with folds and creases. Haha. Looks like a kindergartener's work to me.
Thankfully it looked a little better by the end of the session yesterday :)
And there are a few of us who agree that removable pros can be fun after all the stresses in operative dentistry.

*photos from mr. mcgee's lectures. i hope i don't get in trouble for plagiarism :S shhh.

How exciting

OpDent is a combination of frustration, stress, tears, sweat, impatience and... the occasional feeling of being elated and proud of a successfully completed prep.

2 and a half hours. That was how much time i spent trying to expose the root of a tooth so that i could make a fake toothbrush abrasion lesion. I had to knock and scrape away plaster with a plaster knife. You know the sound and the feeling of running your fingernails across the chalkboard. Imagine having to do that on purpose. Eeeeek. I cant even stop myself from cringing after a whole afternoon of that. Then i had to expose the root even more so that i could put a clamp on for the rubber dam.

Well, basically i spent more than 2/3rds of my lab session this arvo with useless effort. All that preparation for my task wasnt even accreditted for. The main task i had to do took only10 minutes. 10 minutes!!! and i havent even finished it because the material i put on the tooth wasnt smooth. I still have to polish it tomorrow.

Yawn.

1st day of uni

today marks the 1st day of uni after the well-deserved easter break.

it also marks the first day of me blogging after ... 5 months? oops. haha.

i moved to a new room at the beginning of semester. have you seen it?

i now enjoy a shared balcony.

and i dont want winter to come!