Peter "took" his Western Regional Dental Boards last weekend (April 3-5, 2009). He had to perform a number of dental procedures on several patients. He did very well, especially under all that stress. I became personally familiar with his stress as his assistant on Saturday and Sunday. The biggest stress is having to depend on the patients... for a grade! What happens if they don't show up? Well, thats where all the fun begins. Peter's Friday afternoon patient did not show up, she did not call, nothing. So, he aimed to do three patients Saturday. One guy, a trucker, called Sat. morning at 6:30am to report that his truck was broken down in Missouri and that he was on his way, he'd just be a few hours late. So, Peter "found" another back-up patient in the lobby and performed a procedure on her. It turned out to be much more complicated that he had anticipated. Four hours and four anesthetic shots later... he aced it. The trucker shows up and we only had enough time to do his preparation, not actually fill the cavity. So, we told him to come back Sunday morning at 7:30am. He must have had a rough night, because we didn't see him Sunday morning.... Peter called a few times. He only had until 11:00am to finish everything to pass his Boards. What to do... what to do...? We snagged another back-up patient in the lobby and asked her if we could do a silver filling, even though she wanted a tooth-colored filling. She reluctantly agreed after Peter promised to re-do the filling in tooth color later on. His examiners required a silver (amalgam) filling. Well, after he's finishing up on Maria (I was the Spanish translator during the procedure), he gets a call from the trucker, now awake and apologizing excessively. Out of the goodness of his heart and after all the stress, Peter invites him to come back in so that he can finish the filling... just because it needed to be done. He'd already taken a deduction in points for switching patients (no fault of his own), but he did TWO fillings, the 2nd just to be nice. We missed General Conference on Sunday morning, but Peter's pretty sure he did adequately on the Boards. What stress! Too much depends on these flaky patients and it seems unfair that the dental students are docked points for things that are out of their control. Oh well, Peter got through it, as always!
Monday, April 6, 2009
Peter's Dental Boards
Peter "took" his Western Regional Dental Boards last weekend (April 3-5, 2009). He had to perform a number of dental procedures on several patients. He did very well, especially under all that stress. I became personally familiar with his stress as his assistant on Saturday and Sunday. The biggest stress is having to depend on the patients... for a grade! What happens if they don't show up? Well, thats where all the fun begins. Peter's Friday afternoon patient did not show up, she did not call, nothing. So, he aimed to do three patients Saturday. One guy, a trucker, called Sat. morning at 6:30am to report that his truck was broken down in Missouri and that he was on his way, he'd just be a few hours late. So, Peter "found" another back-up patient in the lobby and performed a procedure on her. It turned out to be much more complicated that he had anticipated. Four hours and four anesthetic shots later... he aced it. The trucker shows up and we only had enough time to do his preparation, not actually fill the cavity. So, we told him to come back Sunday morning at 7:30am. He must have had a rough night, because we didn't see him Sunday morning.... Peter called a few times. He only had until 11:00am to finish everything to pass his Boards. What to do... what to do...? We snagged another back-up patient in the lobby and asked her if we could do a silver filling, even though she wanted a tooth-colored filling. She reluctantly agreed after Peter promised to re-do the filling in tooth color later on. His examiners required a silver (amalgam) filling. Well, after he's finishing up on Maria (I was the Spanish translator during the procedure), he gets a call from the trucker, now awake and apologizing excessively. Out of the goodness of his heart and after all the stress, Peter invites him to come back in so that he can finish the filling... just because it needed to be done. He'd already taken a deduction in points for switching patients (no fault of his own), but he did TWO fillings, the 2nd just to be nice. We missed General Conference on Sunday morning, but Peter's pretty sure he did adequately on the Boards. What stress! Too much depends on these flaky patients and it seems unfair that the dental students are docked points for things that are out of their control. Oh well, Peter got through it, as always!
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6 comments:
Oh my gosh! That was so stressful just reading that! I'd love to see Petey in action. Maybe in Brooklyn I can follow you around!
What a beautiful assistant! It sounds like it was crazy, talk about pressure. Is he completely done with boards? Does this mean he's done with classes/school too? I'm sad you two are leaving sooner than July...
Ahhh...memories of dental boards. Major stresssssola! I got to be a patient our first year in school and I understood why they wanted me to be their patient sooo bad because.......well, I was reliable. :) I'm glad he did a good job! Yahoo!!!!!
When I got my fillings, I was thrilled spitless because I didn't know I could have it the same color of my teeth - pearly white (yeah right).
Anyway, I'm glad that is over with. Congratulations Peter.
Man! Talk about needing a stress test! I'm glad he did well!
Your stories remind me of all the horror stories I heard from my brother Tim while in dental school. At least you can take comfort in knowing that's pretty much how it goes I guess. Congrats on a successful finish!
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