Wednesday, August 31, 2005

I spent most of my free time in the lab working on class II preps again. I learned from my row instructor that if all of our preps are not turned in by the end of the quarter (3 weeks from now), we get an incomplete. Not a good thing. So, I'm busting my chops to get some decent preps done. I've got 4 left that need to be checked off, and they are all class II preps.

During our restorative class in the morning, we worked on polishing our castings. It was just a fun few hours of making our little trinkets shine. My little punk-rocker pac-man turned out pretty neat. I'll take a picture and post him when he is all polished up.

In the afternoon, I nearly didn't make it through biochem. I was exhausted. I did a little better in anatomy, but I was still distracted. Our lecture in anatomy was on the histology of the GI tract.

After school, it was back to the lab. I gotta get cracking or else I'm going to end up in remedial!

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

I used my time before class this morning to work on cutting another class II prep on #19. I'm getting better. I need to make my box more conservative in every dimension, and then I think I'll be 90% of the there. I need to get good at it because we have a practical on it in a couple of weeks.

During dental anatomy, we finished our wax up of a premolar. We had 2 hours before we needed to be done and have it turned in for grading. For a few minutes, I thought I wasn't going to finish in time. But, I did, and I scored well on the grading. Following the lab portion, we had a brief lecture on the anatomy of teeth in the arch.

After lunch, we had a lecture on the GI tract. In lab, we focused our dissection on the liver, gall bladder, and branches of arteries coming off the aorta. Our table was worried that we were going to cut into large intestine and expose all of the fecal matter. The lab stinks bad enough, and we didn't want to deal with the additional foul smell.

Monday, August 29, 2005

I have been slacking on keeping my operative skills sharp. With the easy weekend, I finally felt like I had some time to spend in the lab to work on cutting cavity preps. Unfortunately, I couldn't get my hands to work. It seemed like if I wanted to go in a certain direction with the handpiece, my hands would go in the opposite direction. Very frustrating. So, tomorrow I'll go in early and practice some more.

At 8am, we had a computers in dentistry midterm. Pathetic. The midterm required us to save a file to our network drives that was sent via email to us. After saving the file, we had to open up the file, enter the date in bold, and enter our name in italics. Once finished with that difficult task, we had to reply to the original email and include the updated document. How sad, and what a waste of time.

After the exam, some of us had a two hour break before our next class. At 11am, we had intro to perio probing (aka gum gardening). Perio probing is a long and tedious process that involves inserting a perio probe (imagine that) into the gum tissue surrounding each tooth and checking for large holes and bone loss. Large holes and bone loss mean surgery that will help the gums to regrow and the bone to regrow. The surgery part piqued my interest but the diagnosis process nearly put me to sleep.

Friday, August 26, 2005

I spent a couple of hours before biochem this morning reviewing notes for the day's classes. Things went smoothly. We had a biochem lecture on protein synthesis. I think we are about done with that section. All we have left to cover is gene mutations, etc. The next test will be a biggie. It'll cover around 15 lectures. The good news is that the final is a week later, so there won't be that much new material to study.

At 11am, we had a one hour lecture on Addison's disease. After lunch, we met again for Anatomy and reviewed the anatomy found in the mediastinum (the cavity that carries the heart, the great vessels, the trachea, and the esophagus to name a few). In the lab following lecture, we were able to identify and dissect out most of the structures. My group did a fantastic job of exposing the three arteries branching off the aortic arch.

Anyway, this brings week 8 or 9 to an end. The days are going by so quickly it's hard to keep track. In 3 more weeks, we'll have one quarter in the bag and 2 more to go until the toughest part of Pacific's program is history.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

We had another operative quiz today. I did well. After the quiz, we had a lecture on cutting a class II prep on a premolar. Almost identical to a molar, but since it's a smaller tooth, we had to modify some of our measurments.

We finally got down to cutting the preps. My touch was a little rusty. It had been nearly a week since I did any kind of cavity prep. It took me until after lunch to finally establish a nice soft touch with the handpiece.

We cut preps on a mandibular tooth and a maxillary tooth. Oddly enough, my prep on the maxillary tooth was much better than the prep on the mandibular. In fact, I'm seeing a trend. You'd think that using indirect vision with the mirror would create uglier preps, but it doesn't. I'm starting to like the upper arch more than the lower arch.

In the afternoon, we placed our first amalgam filling. Up to this point, we were only cutting the holes. So, today we got to mix the amalgam and cram (condense) it into the hole. I recreated all of the surface anatomy, and when I was done I had a pretty good looking filling. Our professor told us that we had just earned at least $150 for about 40 minutes worth of work. But she reminded us that at her level, she would have earne $150 for about 10 minutes worth of work. Not bad, not bad at all!

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

My kids started school today, so I missed the first hour of my restorative lecture so I could take them tp school and meet the teacher. It was an emotional moment for my kindergartener, and I'm glad I didn't miss it.

For restorative, we had an exercise introducing us to casting crowns. However, instead of casting crowns, we took wax and created anything we wanted with it. Some students made rings for significant others, some made key chain trinkets, etc. I made a creature that looked like a punk-rock pac-man. We took our creations, attached them to a sprue, encircled them with stone, and we are letting them set for a week. Next week, we will melt all of the wax out of them, and then shoot hot silver into the negative impression of our creation. When it's all done, we should have a silver trinket or whatever we created. It was a fun class. There were no real requirements except that we have something finished and turned in by the end of the day.

After lunch, we had a biochem lecture on the mechanics of making a protein at the ribosome. Following biochem, we had an anatomy lecture on the endocrine system. The nice thing about Pacific's anatomy/histology course is that it isn't as comprehensive as it could be. The nasty thing about the course is how fast we cover the material, as well as, the sheer amount of additional work from other classes we have to juggle.

Last night, I forgot to post. I was too tired. I came home, soaked in the tub, and went to bed. So, I'll briefly recap yesterday. We had a dental anatomy quiz, we nearly finsihed a wax-up of a premolar, and we had our huge anatomy exam. After school, I spent a few hours working on my temporary crown. The friggin' thing keeps shrinking on me, so my margins get gaps. It can be frustrating. Some days you wonder if you'll ever learn this stuff or if you'll end up graduating as a half-wit dentist that could never figure it out in dental school.

Monday, August 22, 2005

OCP exam this morning. I spent a good chunk of the weekend looking over the material. As much as I don't enjoy studying for tests, I believe they work. After a test, I understand the material much better than before the test.

After the exam, we met with our GPA (the guy who will be assigning us patients at the end of this year). We went over how to do hard tissue charting. That means we learned how to chart amalgam, composite, crowns, bridges, and other things we find in a patients mouth. Today felt like we were doing dentistry. And that brings up an interesting point, with the exception of Fridays, the rest of the days usually involve dentistry (i.e. operative, restorative, dental anatomy, and OCP). So, in that respect, it's kinda nice at Pacific because the curriculum keeps me excited about dentistry. Fridays are full of biochem and anatomy--absolutely no dentistry.

In the afternoon, we had a one hour perio lecture about measuring pockets, bone loss, and gum recession. We were also introduced to gingivitis and periodontitis. By the end of the lecture, I understood why this area of dentistry is the least loved of all the specialties. It's not very exciting.

We were done by 3pm. Were it not for a big anatomy exam tomorrow, I would have relaxed the rest of the night. Study, study, study. There is never a break.

Friday, August 19, 2005

I spent the morning in the cadaver lab helping a classmate study for our upcoming anatomy/histo exam on Tuesday. Let me emphasize this again for any pre-dents reading this thread--IF YOU WANT TO SLEEP AT NIGHT SCHOOL AND EARN GOOD GRADES DURING YOUR FIRST YEAR, YOU SHOULD TAKE ANATOMY, BIOCHEMISTRY, AND PHYSIOLOGY DURING UNDERGRAD. It is pretty clear who took these classes in undergrad and who didn't.

Biochem started at 9am. Fortunately, he had some computer problems for the first 10 minutes, so lecture was a little shorter, but to compensate he decided to talk a lot faster so he could cover all of the powerpoint slides before class ended. I was riding the bull today--I'd be paying attention one minute and the next minute my eyes would close and my head would start to lean back against my chair and then I'd startle myself awake again. I didn't want to fall asleep for obvious reasons but also because some people in the class have decided it would be funny to pass a digital camera around and take pictures of people when they fall asleep.

In anatomy, we covered the immune system and the heart--all this was covered during 4 HOURS of lecture. During lab, we got to dissect the heart. I was behind the scalpel, so I got to do the honors. Dissecting is a fantastic way to learn anatomy. I actually enjoy carving our cadaver up.

After school, I was feeling a little behind in my pre-clinical courses so I decided to stay and work on my temporary crown prep. I think it's turning out really well. I spent about 2 hours on it tonight (I tend to go slower and more cautiously on my first attempts), and I still have a few more hours to go. The insane thing is that I've seen dental assistants take an impression of a tooth and make a temporary in 10 minutes. My speed needs to improve.

This weekend I'll be studying for our OCP test on Monday and the anatomy exam. Should be a wing-dinger of a weekend.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Sorry for making anyone wait to read Thursday's entry until Friday morning. We have a big anantomy/histology exam coming on Friday, and I have been up late studying for it downtown with a friend.

Today, we had our first quiz in operative. It was the same format as all of the other quizzes we have: multiple choice, 10 question, based on the lecture notes, and scantron. I did alright. Operative can afford to make the quizzes somewhat easier because of the challenging nature of the lab work.

After the quiz we had a lecture on cutting a class II amalgam prep on tooth #19. We prepped the mesial and occlusal surfaces (denoted 19-MO). Our professors tell us that the class II amalgam prep is the toughest procedure to learn in operative dentistry. You have to drop a box cut down the proximal surface without (ideally) nicking the other tooth. However, the most challenging feature (at least I think so) is that many of the cuts we are making have to be accurate to 10th of a millimeter! So, not only do my eyes have to be able to see very, very small depths, but also my hands have to be able to apply just the right amount of pressure to the handpiece so that I don't cut deeper than necessary. It's tricky, but after 6 weeks of playing with a handpiece, it's something that many students get a grasp on quickly. By the end of the day, students were able to produce very nice class II preps.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Our morning Restorative lecture covered making acrylic provisional crowns using the press-form splints we made in lab last week. After the lecture, two professors showed us powerpoint presentations of their practices and practice philosophies. It motivates me to see what I'll be doing 3 years from now.

We moved to lab after the powerpoint presentations and worked on making our acrylic provisionals. I quickly found out that my crown preps from last week weren't reduced enough on the lingual fossa. So, my acrylic impressions were too thin on the ligual side. I spent the next two hours working to get a good impression. I hope I get faster than that.

In the afternoon, we had biochem and anatomy lectures. Our biochem teacher changed for the next two weeks. The odd thing is that the new teacher is a human clone of our first professor. They have the same monotone voice, hand gestures, idiosynchrocies, and physical features . . . but we are assured they are not related.

I stayed after school until 5pm. I'm off to a good start on my new goal. We'll see how long I can manage it.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

I decided to sleep in this morning until 6:30. I needed to catch up on some sleep. You would think I had time on Saturday or Sunday to sleep in a little bit, but with exams on Mondays, I find myself staying up late on the weekends to study so I can be with the family during the day. Anyhow, I got up a little later, and I took my time getting to school.

At 9am, we had a quiz in Dental Anatomy. These quizzes aren't that difficult. It usually requires about an hour of studying notes and test files to do well. After the quiz, we moved to the sim lab and started our wax up of tooth #12. I'm determined to do better on this wax-up than I did on my last wax-up. In addition to a wax-up of #12, we are required to do a wax-up of number #6 at home. The nice thing about wax-ups or carvings is that it's the only time I can watch a movie or TV while doing school work.

We had a brown bag lunch with the Dean. The lunch happens once a quarter and the Dean discusses current events in dentistry, happenings at the school, policy changes, or whatever he feels like. Yesterday, since we recently elected class officers, he talked about how to escalate concerns to his level.

In the afternoon, we had a lecture on the lungs. Afterwards, we went upstairs to the cadaver lab. We sawed through the sternum and ribs and removed the rib cage. Next we located the root of the lung, which contains the pulmonary arteries and veins, the bronchi, the lymph nodes and other arteries, and sliced through it with our scalpels. Once we completed the cut, we could completely remove the lung from the thoracic cavity. We spent some time indentifying nerves, vessels, and lobes.

For our last meeting of the day, we had a seminar in the large conference room downstairs. We went over clinical conditions of the lungs and abdomen.

After school, I stayed in the lab and cut preps on #3, #13, and #8 (crown prep). The professors recommend 30 to 60 minutes a day cutting teeth with our handpieces. I also sat down with a classmate and started studying for our big anatomy exam next Tuesday.

I got home at 9:30pm. It was a long day. I think I'm going to change up my schedule a bit. I'm going to limit the nights I stay at school past 5pm to once a week. Now that I've got a handle on the way things work here, I don't feel the need to spend all day at school.

Clinic Photos

Monday, August 15, 2005

Biochem exam started at 8am. Of course, I was to school by 6:30am, so that I could run through the notes one more time. I ended up doing well on the exam, which is a nice way to start the week.

Our first and only class on Mondays is OCP. We had a short lecture on how to use the pigtail explorer safely in a live patients mouth, and then we were off to practice in the clinic. I have posted some pictures at rubberdam.blogspot.com of the clinic and me exploring a classmates mouth--enjoy!

After a long lunch, we had another short introductory lecture to periodontics. As with any intro lecture, we covered basic terms and looked at pictures. This perio lecture starts our periodontics module in OCP. I'm looking forward to learning some of this stuff. For you amateurs out there, periodontics is the discipline of dentistry that covers the gums and their attachment to teeth. We will use probes to measure gum recession and other aspects the gums. Should be fun.

Friday, August 12, 2005

The week is finally over. I thought it would be a little tougher than it turned out to be. Next week will bring another biochem exam, but no other tests or practicals. That'll be a nice break.
Today we had a biochem lecture. I'll spare you the details this time, since I'm tired. After biochem, we had an oral quiz in anatomy. The professor pointed to structures and we identified them. It wasn't too bad.

The quiz was brief and so we had a couple of hours for lunch. In the afternoon, we flipped our cadaver over and dissected the abdominal and thoracic walls. I spent an hour trying to find the cephalic vein and the axillary artery. I finally found it, but only after I did a serious hack job on Charlie's deltopectoralis area.

After school, the family came down to SF and watched me play soccer across the street from student housing. It was a nice way to let off some tension. We had about 25 people show up. It was kinda cold, so my kids only lasted an hour. Oh well, at least they came.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

I made it to school by 6:45 and had plenty of time to cut a practice prep on #30 before our practical at 8am. A practical is a hand skills test. We had 90 minutes to cut an occlusal (biting surface of a posterior tooth) prep on number 30. We were allowed to use a marker, our handpieces, any burs we felt were necessary, hatchets, an explorer, and our amalgam condenser. I was slightly shaky from being nervous. It took me a few minutes to relax enough to be able to cut the prep. Making that first dip into the enamel can ruin the entire prep within the first 5 seconds. But, I did alright. It took me just over 30 minutes to finish what I thought was a nearly perfect prep. I was slightly off centered on my supplemental grooves and my fluidity wasn't as nice as I would've liked, but otherwise it was flawless. Unfortunately, the professors who graded my prep, didn't agree. Actually, one professor did agree, the other professor thought it had a few more mistakes. I reviewed his suggestions, and I think he's out to lunch. I'm not sure he/she is on the same page with the rest of the class. But, that's what you deal with in dentistry--everything is subjective. The ideal prep (which is what a perfect prep is referred to at Pacific) depends on who is grading. So, it's pointless to worry about it. I ended scoring well, but not as well as I thought I did.

After the practical, we had a four hour break. I went and observed in the clinic for a bit, and then I headed to the cafeteria to study. At 2pm, we had a lecture on the supposed controversy over amalgam fillings. Essentially, there is no danger from having amalgam fillings. Antiamalgamists are putting on a smoke and mirrors show for the public to listen to.

We were done by 4pm. I passed on heading to the lab and went home. I got to play with the kids for a few hours. It was nice way to end the day.

Tueday's Entry Is Up

I forgot to post my blog for Tuesday night. It's now up and in the correct location (i.e. the entry before Wednesday).

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Before class started this morning, I went into the lab to try and get another crown prep finished. I finally got something that is pretty good. I was surprised. It really boosted my confidence.

At 8am, we had a lecture which reviewed the steps for an anterior crown prep. We didn't finish the lecture portion until 10am. In lab, we learned to make a splint. It's used to help prepare a temporary crown. I'm not sure how it helps, but we'll find out next week. Anyway, the splint is fun to make. First, (for a maxillary model) you grind down a stone model until you remove the hard palate. Second, you use a heat/vacuum. Not sure what it is really called. Essentially, you place a piece of clear plastic underneath a heater until it gets very warm and starts to melt. Once it's hot enough, you flip on the vacuum and it sucks the plastic down around all of the anatomy of your stone model and makes a very nice plastic model or your stone model. Third, you use a knife of scissors to cut away the plastic from the stone, and you're finished.

During the last hour of lab, we had a round robin competition between rows. This involves spending two minutes at a station and then rotating to the adjacent station until you've gone through all 14 stations. At each station, we worked on the same tooth--#8. We prepped it for a crown. We looked to see what needed to be done and then spent the next two minutes doing it. In the end, we had created 14 crown preps of tooth #8 in 28 minutes. Most of them weren't clinically acceptable, but 2 or 3 came out alright. We came in 4th place. It was fun and revealing as to how quickly we cut a decent prep.

In the afternoon, we suffered through another biochem lecture. Today, most of us weren't even sure he was speaking English. After biochem, we had an hour lecture in anatomy on neuroanatomy. Nothing too interesting to note.

After classes, I went back to the lab for 2 hours to work on a prep of #30 for a practical tomorrow. Shouldn't be too bad. The lab was packed with everyone trying to polish up on their skills so they don't become one of the 50% that fail tomorrow.

Tuesday, August 9, 2005

This morning was the first time in 4 days I had time to pick up my handpiece and do some work. I tried my luck at a crown prep, and it became apparent quickly that I had no idea what I was doing. The good news is that none of are doing that well with it. The bad news is that we have to turn in a crown prep tomorrow for a grade. I stayed after school and cut a few more, but any improvement was hard to see.

At 8am, I put away my crown prep and got ready for dental anatomy. We finished our wax-up of #8 and turned it in for grading. I failed. My wax carving also failed. Apparently, most of the class failed. The average was a D, as far as I could tell. The professors told us not to worry about it. They assured us that we would get better.

In the afternoon, we had another anatomy lecture and lab. Today we used a chisel and hammer to break the spine. We removed the vertebrae piece by piece until the spinal cord was exposed. We made an incision through the dura mater and took a gander at the nerves, etc. It amazes me how delicate and small such a vital organ like the spinal cord happens to be. After lab, we went to a seminar and discussed in more depth some of clinical topics related to the spinal cord.

Monday, August 8, 2005

Anatomy quiz at 8am. I spent most of Saturday and a little bit of Sunday studying for it. I wasn't able to do any lab work because of the quiz. I did alright on the quiz. It covered the histology of the nervous system, blood, the circulatory system, the back, and the skin. Some tricky questions, but nothing that wasn't expected.

For OCP, we met our GPA (group practice administrators). These are the guys who run each of the four sections in the clinic. Based on your last name, you are grouped into one of the four sections. The GPAs assign patient loads, make sure students complete requirements, and give the green light for students to graduate.

We also went down to the clinic and practiced giving fellow students a health history interview, took their vitals, and administered both a head and neck exam and an oral exam. It took an average of 30 minutes each to run through all of the steps. Each week is essentially a repeat of the previous week plus something new. I like the repetition, it helps me learn.
We got our loupes today, but mine weren't sized correctly. They are being shipped back to Designs for Vision for adjustments. The rep said it could take 2 weeks or more to get them to me. I told him that was pretty sad considering it took them 4 weeks to get them to me the first time and they cost me $1500. He shrugged his shoulders and said he was sorry. That's what you get when a professor at your school creates a small monopoly for one vendor--crappy customer service.

In the afternoon, we spent two hours looking at radiographs of teeth. After about 20 minutes, we had seen everything they were going to show us that day, but we still sat through the remaining 100 minutes. At one point, one of our professors was talking about how delightful it was to remove calculus from a patients root. She said, and I quote, "When you finally get the calculus off, it feels the same way you feel after you pick your nose and you finally get a good one." Needless to say, the class was on the floor laughing. None of us had any doubt in our minds that she was an avid nose picker, perhaps even trained professional.

Friday, August 5, 2005

Biochem was a little more interesting today than usual. I think it's because I sat closer to the front than my usual spot near the back. I like the extra leg room I get in the back but it's difficult to see the powerpoint screens from back there. I think I'll move up closer from now on. The lecture covered how hemoglobin binds oxygen. It was more detailed than my undergrad lecture.

Following biochem, the entire class was split into four groups and we met with anatomy faculty to discuss a clinical case of muscular dystrophy. Every other week or so, it seems like we are going to go through a similar exercise. I kinda like it because it sums up and ties together all of the anatomy and histology we've learned during the last couple of weeks in a practical application. We were done an hour early so we got a 2 hour lunch.

As soon as lunch was finished we had a short lecture on the muscles in the back and the procedures for skinning our cadavers. By 2pm we were in the lab with scalpels cutting and removing skin and fat from our cadavers. The process was long but surprisingly fun. Our cadaver, Charlie, is skinny with thin muscles. Initially, we were a little too aggressive and cut through a couple of muscles. But, we got the hang of it and we were able to find all the structures we needed to find.

First Photos of D-school

I got these to post this time. Hope it doesn't take too long to load on your computer. These photos are about 2 weeks old. In the picutres, you can see my lab workstation with 'Buddy' the dummy, some of my impression/mold tools, and me mixing the alginate and taking an impression. I included the final result--not too good. I had to take another impression before I got it right.

Thursday, August 4, 2005

I got to the lab an hour early to work on a couple of preps. When I took a look at the ones I had done the night before, I noticed a few glaring mistakes. I keep turning my wrist as I move more mesially on tooth which produces an undercut on the mesial wall. So, I cut a new prep and tried hard not to undercut. It worked.

We had a lecture on how to prep #13, a premolar. Premolar are small teeth and have a very small occlusal cutting surface. I cut 8 preps yesterday. On 5 of those preps, I made the same mistake. I kept cutting the mesial supplemental groove too wide. The problem is that I can't find a good location to hold my mirror so that I can see the occlusal surface of the tooth and not splatter the mirror with lots of water. However, as I was finishing up yesterday, I think I stumbled into a good mirror location. If I hold the mirror slightly out of the mouth, I can get a decent look at the tooth.

Dr. Salimi, my row instructor, passed me off on #19 and #3. That means I can focus on #13 and #30 for next week. We have our first practical next Thursday. During a practical, they give us one tooth (#30 for this practical) and we have 90 minutes to cut the best prep we can. We can't have any notes or assistance. For this practical, we are allowed to take the typodont jaw out of the dummy's mouth to inspect the prep, but on later practicals we won't be able to remove the jaw. The grading on the preps is pretty tough. The course director went over the grading procedures and told us that around 50% of the class traditionally scores a D or an F on the first practical. So, I'll be happy with any grade better than a D. A D is clinically unacceptable, but a C is clinically acceptable (but ugly).

I was too tired to stay after school. We have a very tough week next week. I'll be studying all weekend.

Wednesday, August 3, 2005

It's nearly midnight here in California, and I just got done eating dinner. It was a long day at school. I got to school early again, and I worked on my class I preps of #19, #31, and #3. I think I finally got a couple of examples to show my row instructor tomorrow that she'll pass off.

Our a.m. class was restorative. We had a lecture on how to prep tooth #8 for a PFM crown. For you anxious pre-dents, that is a porcelain fused to metal crown on the right central maxillary incisor. It is unbelieveably tough. I can't even begin to explain how challenging it was for me to cut the prep. There were so many unfamiliar steps to follow that I wasn't even sure how to begin. I just sat there and stared at the typodont tooth, occasionally glancing at the model of the finished product. We had to get familiar using 6 new and different types of burs. So, for the 2 hours I spent attempting to cut the prep, I fumbled around trying to figure out which bur I needed, and which surface I was supposed to cut, and how deep to cut, and on, and on, and on.

Basically, it came down to me just grabbing the handpiece and starting to cut. By the time I was done, 30 minutes later, I had cut the ugliest thing I'd ever seen. I was too ashamed to show it to my row instructor. I was sure that he would fall on the ground and cry after he saw it. Anyway, I wasn't too detered. I pulled out another tooth, and tried again. The second attempt was a lot better than the first.

Biochem was biochem. I think the professor is kin to Bob Ross, the painter on PBS. I used to flick through the channels and I'd stumble into Bob and his happy little paintings. I remember I'd sit there and watch the entire show, even though it was as dry and boring as shows come. It's like I was in a trance and I couldn't do anything about it. Our biochem teacher is exactly the same. You sit there and stare at the power point slides and listen to him drone on about hemoglobin for 60 minutes, and at the end, you can't explain why.

We finished the day with an anatomy lecture on the skin. Just the typical lecture. We have a big quiz in that class on Monday. There goes another weekend.

I stayed after school and cut some more class I preps and a crown prep. The lab was packed with about 60% of the students all trying to get some projects finished up.

For anyone that wonders how Pacific does it in 3 calendar years instead of 4, all you need to do is spend 2 weeks with us and we'll show you.

Tuesday, August 2, 2005

My downloaded alarm clock went off this morning at 5:45am--right on schedule. I needed to be up and ready so that I could be on the front lawn of the dorms by 6:15am to meet Dr. Hayashida for a lift to the golf course. As part of the Tuesday activities, we were allowed to choose whether or not to play golf, tennis, basketball, raquetball, or just hang out on campus. I decided to golf. Turns out, only 3 other students decided to come play golf too. It also turns out that Dr. Yarborough and Dr. Dugoni opted to play as well. So, I was in a foursome with Dr. Y and Dr. Dugoni and another student. It was a fantastic round of golf. They were both very generous and easy to get along with. We all played well, but the fourth member of our group--a slim little blonde girl from the central valley of California took us all to school. No kidding, she could drive the ball around 250 yards on a solid shot. She had 5 pars on the front nine and another 5 on the back. All 3 of us hotshots were stupified by her. We've already made plans to put together a foursome for the end of the year annual golf tourney against UCSF, and she is certainly in the group.

After golf, it was back to campus for lunch, a tour of the new health science building where we will do rotations, and a meeting with our advisors. The advisor meeting was an opportunity for us to discuss the first 4 weeks of school and to voice any concerns. It took about an hour. The biggest gripe was that there was some confusion on what was expected during some of our pre-clincal courses. We got some straight-forward answers that I think helped steer us in the right direction.

The bus ride home took 2 hours. I went up to the lab when we got back and finished up a class I prep on #3 and started a couple class I preps on #19. I have until Thursday to get an acceptable prep on #19 done so that I can get passed off.

Tonight, I've got some homework for our restorative dentistry course. I'll be up for a couple hours. So, lest anyone think that I've got too much time on my hands...I'm out. Night.

Monday, August 1, 2005

Just got back from bowling. I'm in Stockton, sitting in my dorm room. It's been a long day. Essentially, it was just another day of orientation. Except they used the day to explain all of the student government opportunities available to first years. I don't think I'm interested in the extra work right now. I'm not sure if I'd really gain anything of value from the time I'd put into the office (if I was elected, of course).

We had a biochem exam this morning. The first of 4 for the term. There were only 12 questions--all multiple choice. The exams are pretty tricky. Most students, including myself, only studied the lecture notes and past exams. Following this model is apparently good enough to earn an A. I missed enough to earn a B. I'll do better next time.

After the quiz, we went down to the clinic for OCP. We gave fellow students a Head and Neck Exam. Took a total of about an hour to rotate the three students in my group. The exam involves everything from the hair to the hands. We check for swollen organs and irregularities. I thought it was a worthwhile experience.

At 11:30, we boarded the buses for Stockton. The trip took about 2 hours. We had about an hour of time to tour the campus before a meeting with Dean Dugoni. He gave us some more tips on succeeding in dentistry and in the rest of our life. Dinner followed, and then we were back in another meeting. This time with the student officers from last year and we discussed student government like I mentioned above.Bowling was a good time. The entire alley was rented out and we all had fun relaxing and socializing with other students and 1st year faculty. It's nice to see the professors outside of class. Makes them real.

As an aside, today is my seventh wedding anniversary to the best bride I could imagine. I wouldn't be where I am today were it not for her support and encouragment. Thanks Annie.