B28: A Second Home

So to all the first years out there feeling like they're basically medical students, except for a class in dental anatomy, set your gaze upon second year, where you'll truly feel like a dental student. A couple weeks in, I definitely love it. We've been busy going through the motions of making dentures in removable prosthodontics, doing more difficult restorations in direct, and taking a step-by-step approach to making a crown for #30. Really need to get back into the lab and practice that crown prep again cause I get the feeling those are going to be really important later on. After watching Dr. Levy do a ton I'd be ashamed of myself if I wasn't preparing proper crown preps.

I heard before that removable would be the killer class and I guess there's some truth to it, but if you really love what you do, it's a great time. The hardest part I'd say was getting the feel for the materials since you work with so many different ones, with different handling characteristics, and there's a bit of a learning curve to everything. Ivolen is definitely my LEAST favorite thing ever. It's a putty like substance we work under a hood with to fabricate a custom tray. The working time is fairly limited, so you need to be quick with the mixing of the powder and liquid, and precise with the trimming so it fits the patient (or cast in our case) properly. Thankfully I got those signed off, so now it's onto the impression, then beading and boxing before pouring up the cast :). 

This week we've got a ton of things due, and a practical exam - preparation/restoration of #12, #5 DO. Originally an MOD but switched to DO because Sabatini fully understands our pain. The month off from working with handpieces really took a toll but after a weekend in the lab it shouldn't be so bad tomorrow. Record bases for our dentures are due and Triad custom trays with wax rims both being submitted for grades. Wax rims...not fun until maybe the 5th one you make, when you become one with the wax. I'm sure the faculty's intentions are good in assigning us exact measurements for every dimension of these wax rims, but they have been quite troublesome. I had a little better luck with the record bases after going through many packs of pink Triad material, and shellac (gutta percha). Triad I really didn't mind, but shellac definitely took some time. At this point I can say I almost enjoy working with the shellac because once you get a sense of how much heat the material can take before burning, it's really adaptable and somewhat fun (unless you get burned...which is kind of inevitable in the early stages). 

For our crown preps we took an impression and poured up some jade stone casts which are totally cool.    The impression looked deceptively simple, but took me 4 hours to get it right. However, I wouldn't trade the fulfillment of finally getting it right for anything else. To take the impression your assistant fills the custom tray with purple heavy body impression material while you carefully cover the prep, adjacent teeth and occlusal surfaces of the arch with blue light body to capture the detail. Then, the custom tray needs to be carefully placed on the arch, pushed down to capture the vestibule, but in a way that you don't get bubbles. Far, far easier said than done. 

So dental school really feels like dental school now and it's fantastic. I'm going to try to get some pictures up here cause I'm really loving the way some of my trays came out! Quiz and a practical tomorrow so its about time for some sleep!