First REAL patient!

It's easy to say that working on my first REAL patient was like riding a roller coaster, full of ups and downs! I couldn't have agreed more with Mrs. I when she said "this is the patient you'll remember for the rest of your life". I didn't really have a set plan of what and how I was going to go through with my treatment planning, and I soon realized that was a bad idea. I know now how important it is to be organized and to keep a steady pace throughout the procedure. One of the main difficulties I faced was with reading the x-rays because we did not get much practice with them during our clinical practices on each other. When a faculty member pointed to the x-ray and said "you see that composite on #20", I honestly had no idea what she was talking about. Thankfully, the week after I got to do some FMX interps and that helped me a lot. Once my partner and I got done with all the charting and med/dental history, we moved on to scaling. This is when I began to think, what if I can't get anything off? What if I can't find the right working end? Or worse, what if I end up hurting my patient? At that point, I took a deep breath and said to myself "you got this"! I was not going to let all the hard work that I put in to pass my competences go to waste. Once I calmed myself down, I placed the instrument on my patient's tooth and before I knew it, I was scaling the plaque off! I think that was by far one of the best feelings in the world to know that I was actually improving someone's oral health. This was just a first step into my journey of being a dental hygienist and I look forward to many more.