D1 Spring Semester Post Midterm Update

The semester's just about halfway through and despite not having any lab work this semester, it's busy as ever. Just last week I finished up 6 tests in a matter of a week and a half. Neuroanatomy ended and Orofacial Neurobiology has taken it's place. Not much to say about this class yet but from the Pre-test it seems interesting. We're given the option of testing out of the class if you can score high enough on the pretest given on the first day of class. While taking it it seemed like the kind of thing you could study and totally test out of, but according to those who actually did study, they didn't find any detail in the readings on some of the questions. Case studies II has also began which is just a continuation of last semester.

One achievement I'm particularly proud of is being the first dental student to take courses in the medical school! At my interview for Buffalo I asked a question that I thought blew my interview right there -"Are there any opportunities to take courses outside the dental school? I'm really interested in spanish and would love to learn and become a bilingual practitioner." The professor interviewing me responded asking me if I had any idea how much work dental school was, to which I answered "Couldn't hurt to be ambitious." The class has been going great so far and it's really nice to interact with some other students, and learn something outside of the sciences for a couple hours a week.  This Wednesday I'll be heading out to a clinic to speak with spanish speaking patients and take a patient history. It should be a great time:).

Although we have no lab classes this semester, we do have one class that puts us in the Clinic a couple of times a week. This semester is the first time the school has introduced Integrated Dental Practice into the curriculum. The purpose of the class is to get us more comfortable in the clinic and introduce basic dental procedures so that we are more competent when the time comes for us to treat patients. Thus far we've done exercises in infection control, fixed prosthodontics where we poured jadestone models, removable prosthodontics and a few others. The best yet have been clinical exercises where we learned how to do comprehensive oral exams, tooth charting and placed and cured our first composites on one another. Since it's a class in the making there are plenty of issues being worked through but kudos to Buffalo for taking the initiative to provide a dynamic curriculum.

Spring break starts this Friday and I think we're all ready for a week off. That's all for now.