Shooting at School

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Today is Saturday, I am watching the Jazz game while my son is being used as workout weight by my wife, I decided to write up a little something. So much for my daily update, huh? Ha ha. Well, something interesting did happen to me this week. On Wednesday, in the subway station in front of the school police shot a suspect. A link to the story is found on abc.com. It was pretty crazy. I actually didn't even know anything had happened until I was getting ready to go home for the day. I grabbed up my stuff after a wonderful afternoon in our "special session" denture course (total waste of time...okay, not total, just not exactly organized to produce maximal efficiency) and headed down the stairs out the door and was greeted by pandalerium (as jeff foxworthy would say). There were cops everywhere, tv crews were everywhere, and there was nowhere for me to go to get home. I called the wife, and she was able to turn on the tv and internet to find out what was going on.

Apparently, two undercover cops found a guy smoking in between cars on the subway. They removed him from the subway, when he started to fight them, ran away, then for some strange, dumb reason, decided to turn around and pull a gun on the cops. So, the cops (as any cop would) shot him. What that meant for me was nothing more than a headache. Don't get me wrong, it is a sad commentary on the state of Philadelphia, that someone smoking on the subway would lead to gun shots being fired, but I guess you tend to get desensitized by this stuff. That might be part of the reason why this kind of behavior is so common here. It happens so much, that it isn't really news anymore. It is just a headache.

Anyways, I had to cram onto a way too crowded bus, wait half an hour while the bus driver tried to explain that when he said "no stops from here to Girard street" actually meant he wasn't going to stop.

Every person that came up to the bus: "Do you stop at XXXXXX St?"

Driver: "No, only Girard"

Next person: "So, do you stop here?"

Driver: "No, only Girard"

And so on. I came home and talked with the wife about buying a car, or bringing out the old "green" car (a 1994 Toyota Tercel) from Utah, and so on. But I think we have decided to risk life and limb to save the $15,000 a car would cost us over the next two and a half years and continue to take the subway. I even tempted the wife with a new Jeep Liberty, but she didn't budge (which is probably a good thing; if she gave into me, we would probably be one million bucks in the hole, with her around, we can keep it in the hundreds of thousands).

Well, the wife just brought the son by, and he has his sleepy eyes and still needs a bath, so I am off for the night.

Peace.

Oral Path done, time for Perio

Oral Path exam has come and gone, and it wasn't that bad. The questions were all very straight forward with no surprises. I definitely can't complain; if every test was like the one today, then I don't think I would ever worry about a test again. It wasn't cake, you needed to know the information, but all the questions were straight forward and straight from the material presented. So, after the Oral Path test, it was time to study for the Endo quiz later that day. This entailed going Temple Hospital for a three dollar cheese steak and a quick run over the quizzes given in years past. This turned out to be a great move, as who can turn down a toasted, three dollar cheese steak, and the Endo quiz was straight off the back quizzes.

After the quiz was completed our row instructor pulled the row aside and told us how disappointed she was in the result of our first practicals. She said our row had the worst scores when it came to our accesses, and she felt that we weren't filing our canals out well enough. Although I admit that my access was not perfect, it was triangular, and not bad. I am proud to say that my filing was excellent, and that is not just my opinion; my row instructor told me so. :)

After that, half the class split to go study for the Perio midterm tomorrow, and me being either 1) the sheep that I am or 2) not wanting to dig through human teeth looking for a good one or two for an upcoming practical, decided to split as well. This meant that I could come home and spend some time with my wonderful wife on our anniversary, then scoot off to study for the perio test coming up that I had not even looked at yet.

Oral Pathology Midterm Looming

So, here it is, awhile since my last post (which was posted full of good intentions to keep posting), the night before my oral pathology test, and possibly the worst week I have had in dental school, and I am here posting. I think of all the time I have wasted the last month and a half, when I could of been keeping up on what has been going on in my life, and now is when I decide to post. But, it is Sunday, and after a day of church, a little scripture study, a little uplifting music, I am all inspired and ready to go with this. My new goal is to post everyday, no matter how little I write. I can find five minutes a day to do this....I think.

Tomorrow I have my Oral Pathology midterm. I don't know what to think about it. The information is straight forward, the notes are easy to understand, I have all the summary questions answered, BUT there is no back test. That always makes you feel wary, because you aren't quite sure what she thinks is important, and you don't get those five repeat questions that always make you feel good as you are taking the test.

After the Oral Path test, I am planning on rushing home on my wedding anniversary and kissing my wife, telling her that I love her, and then locking myself in a room to wrap my head around some Perio. My Perio mid-term is Tuesday and I have yet to even look at it. In fact, I just received and copied the notes twenty minutes ago. I feel bad about kind of ruining the wedding anniversary, but I have to do what I have to do....I hope. I can justify it by saying that a couple of crappy wedding anniversaries will pay off down the road when I can really afford (both monetarily and time-wise) to spoil her.

Well, it is 10:30 and I am just watching the minutes pass by, thinking that I could be sleeping, so I am off to bed to get my standard 4-5 hours of sleep, then up tomorrow morning for some last minute Oral Path cramming.

So, here it is, awhile since my last post (which was posted full of good intentions to keep posting), the night before my oral pathology test, and possibly the worst week I have had in dental school, and I am here posting. I think of all the time I have wasted the last month and a half, when I could of been keeping up on what has been going on in my life, and now is when I decide to post. But, I it is Sunday, and after a day of church, a little scripture study, a little uplifting music, I am all inspired and ready to go with this. My new goal is to post everyday, no matter how little I write. I can find five minutes a day to do this....I think.

Tomorrow I have my Oral Pathology midterm. I don't know what to think about it. The information is straight forward, the notes are easy to understand, I have all the summary questions answered, BUT there is no back test. That always makes you feel wary, because you aren't quite sure what she thinks is important, and you don't get those five repeat questions that always make you feel good as you are taking the test.

After the Oral Path test, I am planning on rushing home on my wedding anniversary and kissing my wife, telling her that I love her, and then locking myself in a room to wrap my head around some Perio. My Perio mid-term is Tuesday and I have yet to even look at it. In fact, I just received and copied the notes twenty minutes ago. I feel bad about kind of ruining the wedding anniversary, but I have to do what I have to do....I hope. I can justify it by saying that a couple of crappy wedding anniversaries will pay off down the road when I can really afford (both monetarily and time-wise) to spoil her.

Well, it is 10:30 and I am just watching the minutes pass by, thinking that I could be sleeping, so I am off to bed to get my standard 4-5 hours of sleep, then up tomorrow morning for some last minute Oral Path cramming.

First Day Back After School This Year

Today was my first day back at school, even though I have missed the first week of school. I am sitting here at the computer dead tired (our flight was delayed yesterday, we didn't get home until 5 a.m. this morning) and having completed one day of school so far. Today was Pharm, Oral Path, and Endo. Endo was very basic today, very introductory, and very boring. We basically went over info that we have covered ten times before in Histo, Anatomy, Physio, Micro, etc and then went into the lab and made sure that we had all our instruments. Don't get me wrong, I am definitely not complaining. I need all the help I can get right now as I try to get caught up. I am a little worried that I am getting dangerously behind in Pharm and Oral Path.

The good/bad news is that tomorrow we have all dental classes, but I have to stay at school until 3 p.m. to do my radiology rotation. So, while it will be fun to actually have a whole day of relevant classes, it will stink to wait around 4 hours for the rotation to start, but it will be good to have that time to hit the books and get rolling on this studying stuff (I guess).

Anyhew....I am dead tired, and it is getting late, and if I don't head off to bed I will be dead tomorrow, so Peace.

Principal Dies During Root Canal

I was on studentdoctor.net and came across an thread that linked to this article:

Chicago Tribune: Woman Dies at Dental Office

My thoughts on what was reported are these:

"I would think that she had to have some kind of underlying health problem," said Dr. Christopher Wenckus, chief of the department of endodontics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "Healthy people just don't die from heart attacks."

I find it funny that they would quote the chief of endo here. Right off the bat, this just shows that the reporter either has no clue about anything pertaining to this subject or is lazy. Autopsy reports showed inconclusive results, but we do know a little about what happened and, if a proper expert is consulted, I am sure that an educated guess could be made about what caused the patient to go into cardiac arrest.

I also love this bit from the article:

"Both dentists had their licenses placed on probation for 18 months starting in July after the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation alleged that a "crown and bridge treatment" performed by their office was substandard. They were also cited for poor record keeping."

Is it any real wonder that we never hear about the doctor (dental, medical, etc) that takes meticulous records, proper histories, treatment plans ethically for their patients killing people? Don't get me wrong, even the best of doctors make mistakes and bad things happen to everyone, BUT it usually seems like the morons are the ones creating a scene when things go wrong. Also, if you are providing substandard crown and bridge treatment, what makes you think that you can perform a root canal properly, and on top of that, sedate your patient? These guys show once again, that just because you are a doctor, it doesn't mean you are smart.

"Watson received twilight sedation"

Don't they always? I know that twilight sedation works. I know that hundreds of thousands of procedures are done every year on patients using this method with no complications. In fact, the article states that the same patient received twilight sedation just month earlier with no adverse effects. I do not fault dentists that use this method to help their patients receive the care they need. BUT, why take the chance. I compare this to getting implants placed in a patients mouth without having a CT scan done. Does it work? Yes. Is there minimal risk? Yes. Could that risk be reduced by having a CT scan done? Yes. So why put your patient in a higher risk category? Why put yourself, as the provider, in a position to be second guessed, when there is a better way out there. I know that twilight sedation works, but I also know that there are other alternatives out there that allow the dentist to do what he does best, and the anesthesiologist to do what they do best.

"It was done at the same location, but it's unclear whether it was the same dentists."

One more example of the ineptitude of these two doctors. There should never be any doubt what procedure was done, and by whom.

I feel bad for this woman and her family. I do not know the whole story, but as it is currently unfolding, it does not look good for these two doctors. I hope I will remember what has happened here and make sure that I take the steps in my practice prevent this from happening again.

Gold Onlay Final Project RD III

So, here I am looking through photos of my new son, and I ran across these. Here is the gold onlay that we had to do as a final project in RD III. Overall, I like it, though my polishing wasn't completely perfect, and my lingual margins really suck (the only check I received on the project).