A Day in the Life of a Dental Student

As promised, here is this months "a day in the life" post. Because my schedule varies so much, I plan on posting a new version of this each month. Last month our focus was on root canals, this month it is something else entirely. Things move fast! Here is my current typical day...

6:15AM Wake-up/Gym/Shower

I have been trying to incorporate more exercise into my schedule and I find that going to the gym first thing in the morning or right after school works best for me.

Yes I know that my form is wrong above

8AM-10AM  Review of Systems (ROS) 

We have been spending quite a bit of time at the medical school lately....our clinical rotations will be among underserved populations where many of the patients haven't been to a dentist or a physician in several years. Therefore, we are required to take vitals and possibly additional measurements at each appointment. This has proved useful because the dental students here have been the first to detect everything from heart murmurs to high blood pressure. Now I hope that I don't find anything that would make me feel the need to give a quick eye exam or percuss someone's diaphargm, but if need be I totally can! 

10:30AM-12PM Medical Interviewing Lecture 

Unlike first year where each week was filled with 40 hours of lecture and an exam, we are rarely in class anymore. The lecture that we do have is more based on applying all of that basic science material that we learned. 

12PM Lunch

I use this time to relax a little and catch up on emails and to eat of course! 

1PM-5PM Clinical Exercises 

Rumor has it that we will be entering clinic in the Spring (we shall see), so we have been doing a series of timed exercises with restorative projects such as fillings. We complete these in the patient clinic instead of our practice lab...the goal is to increase our speed and to become comfortable with using the clinic operatories. We are also practicing four-handed dentistry as we work in pairs with one of us acting as the dentist while the other acts as the assistant. 

This is what our clinical operatories look like, I love the view and natural light. Makes it cheerier. This was our set-up for the day. Please excuse the mess:) 

Can I just say that these sessions are the most exhausting experience ever. The faculty are really trying to push us to speed up. Oh and did I mention that these were graded? Just a little bit stressful!

The Aftermath! 

I definitely have to seriously work on staying more organized while working, but that's what practices like this one are for! 

5PM-7PM Break Time

I used this time to eat dinner and lay around with PJ! 

7PM-11PMish Limbo 

I call this time of the day limbo because this time varies from evening to evening. I'm always struggling to determine if I should use it to study for exams or study for the national boards or spend my time in the lab. It's all a balancing act right? On this particular day, I went back to school to work in the practice labs. 

Crown Preparations
1. Take Photos of Prep          2. Develop Model               3. Comparison 

 I decided to drill a crown preparation, which I analyzed with a CADCAM machine. This machine can be used to synthesize a gold crown right in the office (as opposed to sending it to a lab) so it's a good way to check my work. I'm so thankful that my school has these, they are a little costly so many dental schools/dental offices go without. 

Red is bad, green is good, and the blue areas represent where I didn't drill enough. As you can see, I have some more work to do. 

11:00PM Home to Skype with the Husband 

12AM Time for Bed 

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