The Summer Before

As of May 21st 2011, I'm officially a Bachelor of Science in Bioengineering. Although for me all the ceremonies and congratulations didn't mean too much as I'm looking forward to at least four more years of education. Nonetheless it's great to celebrate a stepping stone in the bigger scheme of things.

So with housing taken care of, I'm steadily chopping away at the "To-Do" list UB has posted for its incoming students. The sending transcripts, medical forms, ID photos and other paperwork was nothing, but finding somewhere to certify in Basic Life Support, and the hunt for extracted teeth is a bit more challenging. I've secured a handful for now, but I'll need WAY more than what I have currently. I know a fair amount of dentists though and I wouldn't be much of a Bioengineer if I didn't know how to utilize a network :). On top of that, undergraduate school did a great job of demonstrating the importance of preparedness. There truly is no such thing as "too prepared", when it comes to academia at least. Having spoken to some other dental students I've come to the belief that Gross Anatomy will be the killer first semester. In preparation I've got Rohen's Color Atlas of Anatomy: A Photographic Study of the Human Body on the way. Until then I've been reading a couple of books that look at the not so technical parts of dentistry:


A Brief History of the Smile by Angus Trumble is by an art historian whose given talks to dentists, oral and maxillofacial surgeons, plastic surgeons and other related health care professionals.  This book focuses on the importance of different facial features and how changing some of those features can have drastic effects that the provider may not be aware of. The book looks at different works of art and analyzes the smiles. The chapters are broken down by what may be conveyed by the smiles: Decorum, Lewdness, Desire, Mirth, Wisdom, Deceit and concludes with the question of Happiness? There's a little bit of anatomy and a few dental anecdotes embedded in the book as well. Trumble cites his sources but also brings up many aspects of dentistry that one may never think about. What I really love about this is that the author isn't just another dental professional - he's an outsider with a different perspective. As we often see, so called "experts" may sometimes be "too smart" to see discoveries that outsiders easily pick up on. Hence academia's stress on interdisciplinary education. Great read though for artists, dentists or anyone just interested in smiles (a total steal for 2 bucks on Amazon).

The Excruciating History Of Dentistry by James Wynbrandt is a book I haven't yet started but can say it sounded really interesting just by the back cover. Amazon gives a great description as well and as an upcoming dental professional I think it'd be nice to know where everything came from and what we were doing years before. UB has a museum that offers some insight to dentistry's barbaric beginnings but this book offers many more cool tales. So two dental history books. I think it's a good start. To borrow a quote I heard somewhere before, "You can't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been."

Aside from all the tooth related things, I've got my seventh year of life guarding being kicked off on June 11th.  It scares me a bit that one of these upcoming summers could be my last there as I'll probably want to find a research position or something dental related later on. We'll see though.