The Other Side of Dental School: Charity Rides and Prom

Well I have decided to come back to the blog and write a little bit on what has been going on in the life of a first year dental student at the glorious Midwestern University College of Dental Medicine.

First off, I have been somewhat cognisant of "blog worthy" material since the last few posts I have made and have noticed that the longer I am in dental school, the less frequently "blog worthy" material jumps out at me. I think this is because a norm has been established and dental school has become the daily grind and has become somewhat mechanical. There have been a few new additions as we, the inaugural class of 2012, have traversed the threashold of the Spring quarter. Our weekly basic science schedule has been refreshingly modified where we have 2-3 science lectures a day mingled with cadaver lab. Rather than a test every Monday, we have our basic science tests every other Monday. We still have a lot of quizzes and exams and lab work to do with our other classes, just the brunt of our sciences has, in my opinion, become slightly more relaxed. We have also begun NBDE part I (National Board Dental Examination) preparation classes. Boards are on the horizon yet are somewhat shadowed by the dense jungle of Spring courses to really turn up the anxiety. I am registered to take the boards sometime in August and am sure I will be feeling the stress then.

Alright.... Well, right after we jumped back into our blue scrubs and headed back to school at the start of Spring quarter, the annual American Diabetic Assoiation sponsored Tour de Cure was knocking on the door. Dental School is not only book work and waxing, but it allows for good times and good activities as a class. I had signed up with some other students from the class, as well as the Dean (Dr. Simonsen) and some faculty to form a cycling team. The race was a lot of fun, and surprisingly not as tretcherous as I thought it was going to be. I road 64 miles (100km) in a time of 2hrs and 46min. I am going to try to beat this next year, we'll see what happens. Here are a few pics from race day.

Cycling: The only time stretchy pants are cool.

The finish! Turned out to be a beautiful day, perfect for a race.

Group shot of the team after the ride.

Just this last weekend we had the 1st annual Odontoblast social. First off, you need to understand what our class is all about. We are not all a bunch of stiffs that sit around and study all the time, but we are a tight bunch of friends that like to hang loose and have some good laughs. We are lucky to have a couple of awesome activities coordinators wihin our ranks who work hard to organize events where we can get together as a class and enjoy not digging around in a cadaver or waxing teeth. Now for those of you who are not aware of what an "odontoblast" is (I'm guessing just about everyone who reads this besides dental students or dentists) an "odontoblast" is a cell deep within the tooth that resides on the periphery of the pulp chamber. These little cells are responsible for laying down the hard layer of dentin, a calcified matrix, which lies just below the enamel on the tooth. Our "odontoblast" social was really a prom but we liked the name "odontoblast" becuase we are, at the end of the day, pretty nerdy. The party was complete with a red carpet, specialty cakes, disco ball, open bar, catered food, dancing, prom queen/king, limbo line and my favorite part, the awards. My favorite award went out to Dr. Simonsen who won the "My dean can kick your dean's ass"-award. It's funny cuz it's true. My beautiful wife accompanied me to the party.

Here are some pics from the 2009 Odontoblast.






Denty awards.

I almost forgot! Dr. Gilpatrick's mustache kicked the party into high gear. Even though it was fake, it was respectible nontheless and appropriate for mustache march, another annual activity here at MWU. Dr. Gilpatrick wins the award for longest and curliest 'stache.


Here is a shot of my truck, at least the back window. I bought this truck just about 2 months ago. It is perfect, it gets about 27 mpg which is great for my epic commute to school every day and I have a rack in the back to secure my bike if I am going to drive somewhere for a ride. Best of all, it's dependable. Toyota Power! I also equipped it with a Midwestern University College of Dental Medicine sticker to represent, afterall, I do live in hostile ASDOH territory! (they're 2 miles up the road).

Waxing Some More

So the last project we completed at school was a waxing project which involved the premolars and first two molars on the mandibular left quadrant. It was a good project overall, I can see how waxing up teeth really helps you learn dental anatomy as well as the occlusive movements which are based on mandibular/maxillary/TMJ structure and anatomy. In biology classes, we are always told that structure determines function. In this project, we knew what the function was supposed to be so we worked backwards and created ideal structure.

The benefit of waxing on an articulator is that you can accurately place cusp tips and occlusal relationships, which can be pretty dynamic during mandibular protrusive, lateral/mediotrusive excursions. All of you predental students will know what I mean when you get into the lab.

Here is a picture which shows how a coffee table makes a great lab table on a Sunday night.

White Coated

We, the Midwestern University College of Dental Medicine inaugural class of 2012 have been officially "in-doctor-inated". By this I mean our class was welcomed into the profession of dentistry by the traditional "white coat ceremony". I never really understood the white coat, or at least what it is all about until Dr. G, our Midwestern University president, told a brief history of the significance in her introductory message at the beginning of the ceremony. It turns out that the science community were the sole possessors of the white coat until in the 19th century when the health profession wanted to meld both fields and bring more science into health promotion, prevention, and practice and leave quackery behind. Makes sense, I can't imagine it any other way. Since then the health community professionals have brandished the White Coat. Ironically, my first memory of the "white coat" was from the little white coat wearing, mustached Mexican man in my neighborhood meat market, "Gillmans". His white coat was mostly pink with shades of... well, blood. Meat market day was a day when I would hang out with my mom all day because I was not old enough to go to school. I would accompany my mom as she would run errands in the blue family station wagon and I would look at the buttons on the radio because I was too short to look out the window. Mom listened to a lot of Kenny Rogers in those days. Meat market day was always a fun day because I would inevitably receive a box of animal cookies presented by my mother as these cookies were within my eye's grasp by the cash register. But I digress....

I did have the chance to take my parents around the campus which was nice. I think they were impressed with the greatness of the school. I even pulled out my mannequin in the pre-clinic and showed them all of the toys we get to play with in the wet lab and in the clinic, such as the drills and dentiforms. Good times.

With the addition of my first white coat hanging up in my closet, the feeling that I have entered into a great profession, a fiduciary profession where much is expected, makes me proud. It makes me proud to be a part of something truly great. Camaraderie, friendship, hard work and a continuous education is the path that I am on and I look forward to what the rest of my career has in store. But for now, I need to focus on my cytoskeletal and epithelial exam that I have to face on Tuesday.

Here I am showing my mom what goes down in the sim clinic. Don't let the picture fool you, I look like I know a lot more than I really do!

Excellence

It has been a few weeks since my last post and through the prompting of my friend Aaron, my one and only and faithful blog reader, I have decided to sit down and write about what has been going on in my life at dental school. It seems as the last few weeks have been nothing but studying, or at least thinking about studying. At the close of the first semester at MWU, we had a gauntlet of exams to run through from ethics class, prevention, dental anatomy, waxing practical, psychology, and two basic science tests that included musculo-skeletal systems and gross anatomy. Phew, I'm glad it is all over and I have some time to regroup and enjoy doing nothing. I do have plans to run over to my friendly neighborhood dental lab and throw some wax around and work on my dental anatomy by waxing up some crowns. I also wanted to spend some time going over my biochemistry and polishing up on metabolic processes as well as spend some time in my prevention book reading up on oral health issues.

The last day of school was pretty awesome. We started the day with an anatomy exam. Once that was all over we regrouped in the cafeteria for some intense ping pong action. I held my ground pretty well until JP kicked my trash. We then all headed back to the "OG", Ocotillo Hall room G for a guest speaker, Dr. Richard V. Tucker. Dick Tucker is one of those "dental celebrities" as I like to call them. He is an 86 year old master of gold casting that is still in private practice. Dr. tucker was a very meek and humble man who we learned a lot from. Dr. Tucker inspired me to do my best always. I do not think that he was a young dentist and thought that he would be a great dentist. I think he was a dentist who would not settle for anything less than his best, and his best was excellent. In so doing, he built up a successful practice and a world wide reputation for excellence. His work is beautiful and I hope someday I can restore teeth as beautifully as he can. His patients are proud to have his restorations in their mouths.

Here is what some of his work looks like



We are all pretty lucky here at MWU to have Dr. Simonsen as our dean, not only because he is awesome but because he has made it. He has made it in a sense that he is standing on the mountain top of excellence with the select few who have also decided to not just be dentists, but to advance dentistry through research and the development of new materials and methods. Through his associations, we have had great examples in dentistry come to our school to speak to us. We have had Dr. Gordon Christensen, Dr. Arthur Dugoni, Dr. Tucker, and Dr. Donovan. These speakers shared a wealth of information to us as they spoke but the thing that stood out to me most was their commitment to excellence. These individuals sometime along their career decided that they wanted to not just go through the motions, but to promote dentistry and oral health through excellence, thus they are dental celebrities to me. Even though I have just started my dental education, I look to these examples as where I would like to be thirty or forty years down the road. I hope that I can grow my practice and reputation on my clinical skills and how I treat my patients as these guys have. We had a BBQ lunch provided after our last final, I think the relief we all felt knowing we were done with the first semester made the hamburgers and hotdogs taste that much better.

Well our dedicated and faithful Class Historian, BJ, has made a video that I thought I'd post. It is a "We made it through the first semester" video that highlights a few things at MWU. So with that, here's the video...


Here are some of my fellow comrads in line waiting for food after our last exam.

Week 6 Time Management

This image represents dental school.

Just as every imbalance in life needs adjustment for survival, so has been my experience with dental school. I've been making coarse as well as fine adjustments to try and calibrate my time to handle the course work being flashed before my eyes in the form of never ending power points. The inaugural class of 2012 has been bounced around like a pin-ball in basic-science land for the past several weeks and I am starting to figure out how to handle dental school. It is probably safe to say that I reside on the far left of the bell curve of dental students with time management skills but I am figuring it out and have increased my studying capacity thanks to the sweet nectar within every can of Rock Star. Although the stock market is taking a dump, the number of dental students is increasing as is the need for "study juice". Rock Star is the new gold. If I had any money, I'd definitely invest. If only dental schools would budget the yearly expenses of this stuff into our student loans....

Don't worry, I drink the zero-carb version so it's all good.....