Last Day of School at UCDH

BBQ!

Yes, this was our Finals week for the most part hahah. We already took our National Board in March, and our other Boards that we have to pass to become hygienists don't take place until after graduation. So our Finals weeks consisted of parties and BBQ's!!!

One of the girl's boyfriends and friends came to barbeque chicken for us. We brought the chips, salads, pastas, and desserts. There was quite the dance party afterwards too, haha, some of the girls in my class had some hidden talents! haha.

Our class voted on about 20 different titles to award some different girls in our class. I was voted "Most Helpful," what can I say? I'm so honored, haha.

There was also awards like "Most Likely to Become a Bum," "Most Professional," "Most Likely to Have 10 Kids," "Most Likely to Become a Millionaire," etc. There was a prize associated with each title. I was cracking up because for my prize I was given these butterfly fly swatters! haha.

My friend Lindsey Nance tried out to be a Princess this Summer at Disney World, and she got voted --how fitting-- "Most Likely to Be a Princess." Here we are sporting our prizes!


This was the group picture of the people who were voted the different titles.
The girl in the front lying down is Kat, and she was voted "Most Likely to Become a Bum," hahaha, and her prize was a poncho, and she is showing it off so bum-like haha.
We have a fun class!!!

The group picture with the rest of the gals that got awards.

Give Kids A Smile!

On Valentine's Day, my school was one of the sites that hosted Give Kids A Smile Day. It is a volunteer program where dentists, dental hygienists, dental assistants, and many more volunteered to perform x-rays, cleanings, sealants, fillings, oral health education, translation, and more for underpriveleged kids in the Utah Valley. It was a great turn out & a lot of fun to help out! I taught at the Oral health Education station, which felt very rewarding. Over time, I have acquired pretty good conversational and dental Spanish. This was especially helpful because the majority of those that came were only spoke Spanish. I was teaching the kids all about gingivitis, how you get cavities, preventing cavities, daily care, nutritional conuseling, etc., but a huge part was teaching the parents what they were supposed to be doing for their children. Dental caries is one of the most preventable diseases, but yet it is one of the most chronic childhood diseases. It comes from lack of care and lack of knowledge. It's one thing for the dentists to continually fix their cavities, but another thing to prevent more decay from happening, and putting their oral health into their hands.

Waiting room with some of the patients that day

Brittany, Me, & Kris
We were all given these different colored big smile shirts for volunteering.


My festive Valentine's Day socks in honor of the Love Day, thanks for the socks Mom!

Burning the Blues!

UCDH Chicas

Our Dental Hygiene class decided it would be fun to have a Bonfire! The main purpose of this Bonfire was to "Burn the Blues" --our scrubs that is! It was done at our favorite place, Nunn's Park ;)

BEFORE: Our lovely, shapeless, bland school uniform scrubs

AFTER: Burn baby burn!

Many of us took the opportunity to bring a pair of our scrubs to burn-- in spite or victory, to be determined, but we did it! haha. I still have 3 other pairs of the same exact ones, but it was fun to burn the one! Buahaha!

Lindsey, Christina, Melia, Hailey, Rachelle, Heidi, Me, Suzy

Brittany, Heidi, & Me
We had to show off our awesome glowing bracelets & necklaces!

Laura, Me, Heidi Burton, & Heidi Johnson

(There were 3 Heidi's and 5 Brittany's in my class of 54 girls! haha)
Laura was my very first clinic partner when I started school, and she is a doll! This semester we were paired again as Clinic Rotations partners.
Heidi Burton was in my research grou for Teeny Boppers & Biofilm, she is so fun to talk to and laugh with.
Heidi Johnson was in my first and second clinic groups! She is so funny and has the best laugh, I will miss all these girls!

Our body scrub thing, haha.
This is stuffed with 100% school uniform scrubs!
Yes...we burned the body...it never had a chance, haha.

Brandi & I enjoying our hotdogs!
Our awesome Bonfire was complete with roasting hotdogs, roasting marshmallows & starbursts, and making yummy smores!

Jill & Me
Jill was my other Teeny Boppers & Biofilm parter! Jill is so fun, and is one of the most relaxed easy going people I know! I will miss her many quotes and light-heartedness!

Last Day of Clinic at the

Utah College of Dental Hygiene

This is one of my very best girlfriends at my school, Brandi Gilleland! I love this girl! Our school has assigned seats, and ever since the first day of school, we have sat within 2 seats of each other every time they have switched our seats (and that's good when there's 54 girls in one classroom). We both got engaged and married during school, and we have had so much fun getting to know each other over the last 2 years. She is moving back to Colorado in August, I'm going to miss her so much & always being able to talk with her! Doesn't she have the biggest prettiest eyes?!

Holly, Michelle, Amy, Shantay, Kristen, Carly

This was my clinic team this semester! They are all so awesome! Holly was absent, but we had to include her haha. During clinic, you depend so much on your team, and every single one of these girls would bend over backwards for you.

Me & Carly

We are just a little overwhelmed with all of our paper work!

Shantay & MeWe had to do our big Case Documentation final together, it was so fun working together. In order to finish our final, we ended up having to pick up our sweet Hispanic patient and her children from her house to be able to finish her! Good times! haha. Oh Shantay..."tomar" haha.

This is Miss Moss, she is one of the Clinical Instructors (CI's) at my school. She is so funny and so great, I learned so much from her. It will be so strange to not have CI's checking everything that I do!

Brittany and I don't get along, can I have a new partner please??

Just kidding, we're always joking around ;)

Me & Miss Stidham

The things you find out in dental hygieen school, I'm related to Miss Stidham! Her sister married my Dad's younger brother! haha. She's a new CI this year, and she has been great! I have learned so much from her too!

This is Michelle at my school, she is the Mom of the class.

This is her cleaning out her locker, she is never unprepared! You want it, she's got it!

She could tell you stories all day ;). I'll miss you too Michelle!

Teeny Boppers & Biofilm

Dental Convention

Brittany, Heidi, Janelle, Amy, Kris

The Annual Dental Convention was today and will continue tomorrow at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake. All the students at our school are required to go every year. The Dental Convention brings in all sorts of different speakers, and you can choose what classes you want to go to at what times. Some of my friends decided to carpool to the convention, which is a lot better than going by yourself!

We went to a continuing education class called, "Are you numb yet? The Anatomy of Local Anesthesia." I think it's ironic that we are going to continuing education classes even though we are already in and continuing our education at my school, haha, oh well. The teacher was very good and knowledgable, but it was funny because as us five girls were sitting there listening, we realized we weren't hearing anything new. Everything the teacher said, we had already learned because our awesome instrutor Dr. Allan had gone over it so many times. So it's always fun to feel smart, haha. The classroom ended up getting packed. We got there early, but by the end it was full to capacity, 350 people! That was just one class, there were many others to choose from.

At the dental conventions, they always have the Exhibit Hall, which is one of my favorite parts. A ton of different dental or dental related companies comes to try to sell you on their merchandise, service, etc. I wanted everything there, I think that's what they want haha. One particular item they had was particularily awesome. It was this amazing clinician chair, the lumbar support would glide and follow you, keeping you perfectly supported and comfortable the whole time you were sitting in it. It was like $700 something dollars, I told Truman that if a dentist I worked for really loved me, they would buy me this chair, haha.

Something that I did buy though, was 2 instruments which I'm really really excited about! I got them for an awesome deal, only $7 dollars for each! Since all 5 gals I carpooled with wanted them too, we were able to get a great deal, and also because we were students. One is called the Montana Jack and the other is the 204 SD, I can't wait to use them! I know it means nothing to anyone reading this, but I guess you have to be a dental hygienist/student to be excited about dental hygiene instruments ;).

Something even more fun about the Exhibits is the FREE stuff! ...Floss, toothpaste, Opalescence teeth bleach, paper pads, water bottles, magenents, pens, ear phones, candy (yes, candy at a dental convention), and different product samples: Xylitol gum, mints, and nasal spray, & these new orthodontic flossers. And who doesn't love free stuff? I'm going to return tomorrow and double my loot.

Tomorrow will be more classes and then my friend Heidi, Jill, & me will be a part of the exhibit as all the groups from my school and other schools present their Community Health or Research Projects. Until then...I'll be playing with my new trinkets.

Teeny Boppers & Biofilm

Heidi, Jill, Amy & Mrs. Goodwin's 8th grade classes

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For my dental hygiene school, my friends Jill, Heidi, & me designed a community health project for one of our classes. We designed our project to increase awareness and educate adolescents on the importance of oral health care. We felt like they would be a good age group to target, so that they could start good habits young. We also educated them on various factors that affect them like nutrition, tabacco use, oral piercings, eating disorders, etc.

It was a really fun, but exhausting project, it had to be at least 30 hours. We taught two 8th grade classes at Orem Jr. High in Mrs. Goodwin's Health class period. Both classes were a fun but roudy bunch! We did two visits to both classes. The first visit we gave them a pre-test dental knowledge exam, biofilm index (have them chew up a tablet that dye's their plaque pink, and you record a score for how much plaque they have), gave them a lesson, had posters, visuals, and a fun game. The second visit we wanted to see how much they learned! haha. So we gave them the same test to see how much they took in from our lesson, and we re-disclosed the students again to see if they were brushing any better. The results were actually pretty good, and there was an overall improvement. It's nice to think that all the work you did, really did get through to some people. I am going to enjoy being a hygienist, but I don't think I could ever be an 8th grade teacher!

Loupes Glasses

Angeli Walton & Me

Loupes

Well, this is my assigned seat in Dental Hygiene School --front row, far right. haha. I sit next to Angeli & a girl named Stephanie. It's funny how you make friends, Angeli is hilarious.

But anyway, a sales rep from Orascoptic came to our school who sells Loupes. Loupes have different types of frames (like these ones in the picture), & then it has a little magnifying glass-like piece on each lens that is 2.5x magnification. As I've heard from hygienists, they are career savers. It keeps your erganmoics in tact, because if you slouch to try to see better, your view goes out of focus. So they help you see better, & keep your erganmoics great! I'm very excited for them. :)

Anglei & me were trying on frames, & these were by far the nerdiest ones we could find haha. And no, these frames were not our final pick haha. We chose the frame type like the ones in the second picture.

This is a class of picture of the Class of 2009 taken our first day of school last year.

I'm 6th from the left in the front row.

This is what we feel like sometimes because we still have so much to learn haha.

Shot Anyone???

I'm in my summer semester of hygiene school, and I can't wait till summer vacation!

During the summer we don't have clinic, but we are learning injections! This is my Local Anesthesia course taught by a dentist at our school Dr. Allan who loves to scare you into thinking you're going to paralyze someone. haha. It's rather nerve racking sticking a 2omm or 25mm needle in someone's mouth. haha. We are all shown how to do it on a skull in class and then get to do it once on a manican. Then your very first injection of that shot gets to be on your lab partner you drew that day. You always hope you draw a good one! Heidi Halvereson drew me --lucky her! haha. We did the Posterior Superior Alveolar (PSA) injection today and it is one we will have to pass off in our local anesthesia boards!

I dread going to this class because I know I'm going to get a shot, I know it will probably hurt (because it is all of ours first time), and the class is right before lunch --so I know I'm going to be numb eating my lunch haha.

As Dr. Molen said to us as he walked by: "It's better to give, than to receive".

I would say he's very wise haha ;)

Last Day of Clinic for 1st Years!!!

Oh Glorious Day! I just completed my first year of hygiene school (not counting summer semester). This was my clinic group, and we were together for every day of clinic. Clinic was 3 days a week & we basically did the works on someone for free! It's quite a nice trade off --they get free x-rays, exam, cleaning, probing, toothbrush, floss, etc. & I get to practice for 3 hours.

They give me time, I give them cleaning haha.

It has been quite the learning experience & I still have so far to go. I didn't think hygiene school would be that hard for me because I had been a dental assistant before, but I was definitely wrong haha. I suppose it's like driving in a way --eventually you get really good at it and you don't have to consciously think to press the gas or breaks, you just do it. I can't wait till probing and scaling teeth, and indirect vision in a mirror is like that haha. We had to have very specific criteria for out patients that we saw in clinic. We were constantly having to pass off proficiencies & stress ourselves and trying to make sure our patients actually showed up, and let's just say --i'm glad it's over! At least for now anyway right? haha. Truman even filled in for one of my patients that cancelled on me last minute. It was fun to clean his teeth, but actually made me a little more nervous because I wanted to do such a great job haha. He was my last patient & his teeth will be all sparkly for the wedding!