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.