Waxing #30 and White Coat

Well during our Christmas break, we had the opportunity to take home a block of wax and do our best to carve out tooth #30 (lower right 1st molar). I am not finished with it yet but I thought I would take a break from carving and throw up a few pictures of the progress. Carving wax is not too hard, it just takes a lot of patience and an eye for fine adjustments. If you think you can just whip out a tooth like it's no big deal, you have got another thing coming, unless you are a lab tech or something. I have found that it is not too difficult to get "almost done" with a waxing project, it is very time intensive to get it "done", and by this I mean all of the little touches such as polishing and getting in some of that sweet occlusial tertiary anatomy and getting all of the crests of contour just perfect etc. I could probably spend a week on this thing doing the fine adjustments, but I think I would go crazy before then. Although "almost done" is pretty good, I try not to finish the job untill it is "done". The difference in a clinical setting between "almost done" and "done" is the difference between a successful restoration and a failure which can lead to progression of disease or other serious occlusal/mastacatory (the way teeth fit together)or TMJ problems.


I have had two sweet weeks off of school and will begin classes on Monday. It is always nice to have a break in dental school to regroup and get excited about sitting in basic science classes for a few more months. Also, here is a video that our class historian BJ has put together. He does a great job at capturing the highlights of our adventures of the inaugural class at Midwestern. These are images of the white coat ceremony.
That's all for now!