MOCK?

As you may recall, or may find out by simply scrolling down a bit, you will see that I recently completed the MOCK CRDTS patient-based exam last tuesday. Well, in stark contrast to the mannikin exam, our grades were provided today.

Good news to all, I passed all three procedures. While perio was a bit of close call, I still survived. Most of my mistakes were actually clerical and not clinical which is ok with me, that is why we did this exam, to learn the process. I am going to make a checklist for the real exam to make sure I don't miss any signatures or leave any information blank.

For all my loyal readers, you may note that this the first MOCK exam that I didn't fail. NICE! It would be a real pain in the ass to remediate portions of this test because we essentially would have to do another performance exam in our home clinic prior to graduation. Rumor has it that about 1/3 of the class failed something which is a better percentage than our mannikin exam (about 1/2 I believe), but it still is a high number. Usually a number of people do indeed fail CRDTS, but I don't think it ever comes close to 1/3.

I definitely don't agree with a few remarks on my gradesheet..most notably the gingival contact not being broken on my class II (when it indeed was broken and passable with an explorer), but hell, even with a substandard grade on one section, I still got a reasonable score on the procedure. I even pulled out a hundo on my posterior composite restoration, not to pat myself on the back or anything, just sayin'.

The bottom-line is that despite being extremely stressed and having several things go wrong, the day ended up panning out positively. It was a great experience to have and knowing I can survive a MOCK exam that is graded tough no doubt, all while using less-than-ideal cavities. I'm feeling pretty good assuming I get patients for the real deal.

Speaking of which, I actually won a patient in the lottery this last saturday. So now I only need perio for the real thing. Of course, this is assuming the guy calls me back. Otherwise all bets are off.

So today was allright, despite having an implant crown delivery require re-fab due to the occlusion being MONDO off....bleh.

Allright, that was a quickie but I gotta run.

The light at the end of tunnel is beginning to shimmer!

MOCK!

A major post for a major day. As I D-2, I assisted a D-4 during her CRDTS exam. I remember the intensity, I remember punching holes in the rubber dam faster than I have ever punched before or will ever punch again, and I remember praying not to screw up the simple task of suctioning or mixing amalgam. More specifically, I remember seeing the absolute terror and anxiety amongst the collective soul of all the poor bastards taking the exam.

As a D-3 I was not allowed to assist for the real exam. Instead, we were forced to assist the current D-4s with the mock exam. Basically this exam is identical to the real deal and is sort of a dress rehearsal. That didn’t make it any less stressful. I remember the student I was assisting pacing about anxiously when her second patient was late and then didn’t even show. I remember watching instructors harshly critique preps and restorations. Again, I remember the collective tension of the entire day.

So here we go. I finally am not the assistant, but the unfortunate guy taking the damn thing. The Mock exam was held yesterday for me and I can say without hesitation that it was probably the most stressful day of my life in the category of ‘school.’ I was extremely calm and serene in the days leading up to the exam, consistently reminding myself that this was the Mock exam and not the real thing. However, the day before the exam I just felt crippled by anxiety and paralyzed with trepidation. I couldn’t function. I just sat around like a convict waiting for his last meal. I’m sure many people can relate with this feeling. A BIG event in your life has been approaching and the waiting just becomes unbearable towards the end. The night before you wedding, the night before a big presentation, and the night before whatever - it all ends up the same. You just want the waiting to end.

So let me preface with a quick summary of this exam for those not in the know. I have already done an overview of the CRDTS exam in a THIS post. However, I will outline this final portion now. As you may recall, I took and passed the National written exam (part II) back in august. I also took and passed the manikin portion of the CRDTS exam. What is left? The patient exam: this is what I took a ‘practice’ version of yesterday.

For the patient exam we are required to do three procedures:

Periodontal: Extra-oral, intra-oral exam, calculus detection/removal, probing depth/gingival recession accuracy. All-in-all, we must select a patient with at least 14 surfaces of calculus located within mostly one quadrant of the mouth (with the possibility of using 4 additional teeth from another quad). Three of those 14 surfaces MUST be interproximals of MOLAR teeth while only 5 can be on incisors. So simply finding a patient is a pain in the ass for this exam because you don’t want them to have rampant perio, but they need to have ‘just enough.’ Believe me; the patient pool at the college is mainly of the rampant variety.

Restorative: We must complete two procedures for the restorative portion. A class II amalgam or composite, and a class III composite. Less complicated than perio in terms of selection, but still a pain to find that perfect cavity. Again, you want it to be small, but large enough to warrant treatment.

The hardest part of this entire exam is the fact that we are responsible for finding all of our own patients for both the mock and real exam. As a class, we have held free public screenings on 4 Saturdays over the last few months. Afterwards, all procedures are raffled off. Guess who hasn’t won any raffles despite attending every one of these things? We still have two more, so keeping my fingers crossed.

So up until last Thursday which was the final day of class before the school pretty much shuts down to prepare for the mock exam, I still didn’t have a patient for the perio portion of the mock exam. No patient equates to immediate failure..joy. As fate would have it, I happened to be discussing my quandary with a classmate when another of my peers overheard and graciously allowed me to use one of his patients that he was no longer planning to use. Not an ideal case, but better something then nothing. So it may have been last minute, but I got all three procedures lined up for the mock exam JUST in time. As for the real one which is happening in mid-March, I still need to find two of the three procedures. Five weeks feels like it should be a lot of time, but it isn’t…

OKOK, enough unorganized blather, let’s get to the actual experience I had with this mock exam yesterday. As previously mentioned, I was nervous as I think most people are at this point. The culmination of your LIFE of education hinges on passing this exam. Yea this was just the mock, but it does a decent job emulating the real thing, so it serves as a decent gauge.

So I woke up at 5am, unable to fall back asleep I just got up, showered, and trudged to school at around 6am. 10 degrees, windy, still dark….great start. I arrive at the school around 6:30 and start setting up my assigned unit. At 7am, the sterilization window opens so I get all my instruments for my first procedure – perio. We are allowed to seat the first patient at 7:45am, I told mine to arrive at 7:30, and she arrived at 8:00. I’m not complaining, considering I got this patient a few days ago and had never seen her before, I should be thankful, and I was. So I sit her down and proceed to go through this enormous medical history which I had already reviewed but needed some clarification. What makes this exam even tougher is the volume of paperwork that must be processed and filled out correctly with signatures from varying parties at varying points during the exam. As you might imagine, it is VERY easy to forget to do some of these things in the heat of battle.

All patients require a consent form signed, a medical history form signed, and then there is a procedure progress form that you must get initialed at various points during each procedure. I’m not going to try to outline everything; this is just to give you a basic idea. In short, there is a lot of shit to keep track of all while maintaining your own nerves and not freaking out and projectile vomiting all over the place. So I quickly complete my extra/intra oral exam, and check her teeth for calculus. Remember, I haven’t seen this patient yet, and I need to fill out a big old treatment submission form with all the teeth I plan on cleaning. If there is no calc on the tooth, I had best not put it on the treatment submission form. So once this is all done, I get a start check from a central floor examiner or (CFE). He pretty much reviews the medical history and makes sure it is good to go. I forgot to put one of the meds down from her laundry list of conditions, oops, the first of many tiny mistakes. Next, my assistant takes her off to the evaluation room to see if my tx selection is approved. Here comes the first of many long waits. I can’t emphasize enough how stressful this portion of the exam is. And the funny part is that it is not when you are actually doing anything, it is when you are just sitting on your ass praying the powers that be don’t reject you patient or fail your prep/restoration.

Well she comes back in 15 or so minutes and everything is good to go. I complete the procedure fairly quickly (by dental student standards) with no real noticeable complications. I send her back to be evaluated at around 10:00. At this point my second patient had arrived. My assistant and first patient come back with the “feedback” form which is unique to the mock exam for perio only. Basically I missed a ton of calculus. Now I am not one to bitch (well, maybe just a little), but feeling around the sites they said I missed, I really wasn’t convinced on SEVERAL of their observations. I am now positive that periodontists think the CEJ qualifies as calculus. Basically if the surface isn’t as smooth as glass, it isn’t done. Now the only reason I am not upset really is that EVERYONE for the most part was getting similar feedback. So either the perio faculty is trying to scare the crap out of us, or we all just suck at SRP (probably a little of both). Either way, general dentists will be grading the perio on the real exam, so I’m hoping for more realistic SRP expectations for someone who will most likely never do an SRP again after this exam. So I missed 5 sites (I think) total. I assume this is failing but have heard from several classmates that you can miss 6 and still pass. I also understand the case I was doing was pretty difficult overall and not exactly ideal (really tough to clean 7mm pockets on #16). Whatever, it wasn’t how I wanted to start, but you need to really be able to move on during this exam…as it is a LONG day.

After re-wrapping the chair, I get my second patient seated (#4 DO). Again I will mention that I had a D-3 assisting me throughout the day which was extremely helpful.

So here is where things get interesting. This patient needs to make a phone call at a certain time and also needs to pee every hour. Why? I don’t know, but it annoyed the crap out of me. I get the class II lesion approved, numb him up and attempt to place the rubber dam. Problem! The dam won’t fit in the interproximal surface that I need to clean. Upon further examination, I realized that this was a TERRIBLE tx selection because the adjacent tooth had a huge composite on it with a flat long contact. CRAP! So I start prepping without the dam (only needs to be on during evaluations officially). I soon realize that I am gouging the shit out of the adjacent composite because its bulky ass is getting in the way of my gingival box prepping. Now in real life, I would recontour the composite without question simply to create a better contact when I place the restoration. But I’m not allowed to do this without requesting a modification on the exam. What is a modification? Another piece of paper that requires signatures! So at this point, I realize that I also will need to extend my preparation beyond ideal to get rid of the caries as well as recontour the tooth. Three walls need to be extended/deepened. So I have a total of FOUR mods filled out. I send him over. He comes back 20 mintues later with a piece paper that titles: Instructions to candidate. NOT a form you ever want to see on this exam. This form is the one that comes when you fail. It also comes for other reasons, and this was thankfully one of those. The rubber dam MUST be placed whenever the patient goes to the examiner station. I didn’t have it on and hence wasted 20 minutes. So after a 15 minute phone call and another pee break, I get the dam on and send him back.

At this point it is nearly 1:00 and my third patient has arrived. I am feeling extremely stressed and assume I will probably fail this procedure. Basically, if they don’t allow me to recontour the adjacent tooth I cannot complete the procedure acceptably. He comes back in about 10 minutes and like night a day, things get better instantly. ALL four of my modifications were approved! I instantly recontour the crap out of the adjacent tooth and remove all remaining caries. The prep looked very nice in the end and if rotations have taught me anything, it’s how to detect caries and do directs. So I send him back for the prep evaluation. Yet more anxious waiting ensues. Back he comes…with another instructions to candidate sheet. Crap? Apparently I didn’t break the gingival contact. But wait, when I hold the mirror and look, the contact is passable with an explorer…I’d say that means broken..but hell, I’m just some plebian dental student. So this is not a fail, but a big point deduction - very deflating after feeling very nice about the prep. So I must show the floor examiner the instructions, he looks and the confusingly asks, “It’s not broken?” HAH, at least somebody agrees with me. Bah, I don’t need to prep anymore, the CFE signs without additional prep that I ‘broke’ the already broken contact. So now I fill using composite. Nothing to report, easy fill, good contact, nice margins, no occlusal interference. Send him for the final eval. Comes back, no problems – nice. I forgot to complete my anesthetic record and forgot to have a CFE initial my modification completion…two more whoopsies. I am normally a pretty organized person..but in the chaos of this exam and this particularly difficult case, I just forgot to do some pretty simple things. And yea I’m bitching about the patient a bit when I should be thankful that he took the time to show up. And I AM! Despite the phone calls and hourly urination, I’m glad he was there.

Note to everyone – DO NOT do a restoration that will be touching a poorly contoured adjacent restoration…it sucks.

So this patient took me 3.5 hours. I get my third patient seated (#7 ML) and all paperwork filled out around 2:45 (deadline to start final patient is 3:30). I get him numb and run to the locker room to pound a power bar and bottle of water (5 minute breaks!). The patient was one my cousins and pretty chill and thankfully isn’t peeing every hour. Again, the rubber dam is giving us trouble and requires replacement after I finish the prep. The problem this time was that we made the holes too small and it was stretching and getting small tears. I start the prep, the patient is having difficulty getting numb and I am getting stressed because I don’t exactly have time to wait around for more anesthetic to settle (+ get the signed approval to use it). Luckily, the patient declines additional anesthetic and we press on! This prep ends up being large due to caries and I must send him over for mods. All of my requests were granted 6/6 on the day, not bad. Unfortunately time is becoming an issue, but I manage to remove the remaining decay and get him over to the evaluation station by 3:50 (deadline is 4:00 for preps). He comes back and all we have left to do is fill, easy right? I slide in the mylar matrix, wedge it and fill. Once I remove the wedge and mylar, I notice the contact is NOT closed. After using every profanity in the book as well as a few new improvised phrases (mentally of course), I start wedging the other teeth to push it back. I end up adding more composite and FINALLY get the contact back. After polishing, and smoothing the contours, I BARELY get him over to the evaluation station in time (4:50 with a 5:00 deadline). Christ. Now I don’t feel great about this filling simply because I didn’t have time to really look it over as I normally would. One of my favorite instructors was a floor examiner for the exam and sat down with me while I waited. He could tell I was pretty frustrated and really calmed me a down a bit with some jokes and practical advice. And wouldn’t you know it; my assistant comes back and gives me the big thumbs up, no problems. FINISHED! Forgot to complete my anesthetic record again…whoopsies x4.

So I get home around 6pm…about a 12 hour day no real breaks. I was so exhausted mentally and physically it is indescribable. Hell, I’m actually pretty sore today from doing dentistry..muscles I didn’t even know I had are screaming in agony. I’m just glad it’s over. Besides perio, I’m pretty sure I passed everything which is awesome considering how crappy my treatment selection was. But hey, you don’t want to waste the really perfect lesions on the mock exam anyways.

Grades will be provided next week I believe. Either way, it was a well-organized and beneficial, albeit stressful exam. I applaud the faculty on their organization in running everything so smoothly.

The bottom line is that I got through it. One more Big hurdle (real CRDTS exam) and few small ones (endo performance exam, papers) are all that stand between me and that big fat DDS. The road has been long and arduous, but as my dad told me way back amongst my first year griping - at least there’s an ending. There sure is dad, there sure is.

The D-4 Experience II

Let’s face it; I’m due for another one of these. It is difficult to come up with a proper description of the fourth year at this point. It actually feels similar to the fourth year of high school, or the fourth year of college. Similar in that you just are ready to get the hell out. Your third year is full of so many learning experiences and adjustments and failures that you barely have time to take it all in. Now I feel like I have pretty much come as far as I can in the dental school setting.

Sure, there is still a lifetime of learning ahead of me, but it seems best suited that I do that learning in the real world at this point. Seeing two patients a day truly limits what you can do. Not ever having an assistant truly limits what you can do. Having to do your own lab work, wrap your own chair, become a collection agency, or get cases sent to PG because they are “too tough” truly limits what you can do.

Don’t get me wrong, I still do learn at school – but I feel like I’m trying to squeeze juice from a turnip rather than an orange at this point. For example, I started my first bridge maybe a month or so ago. The preps were great, the temp was ok, and the impression turned out awesome. So I tried to send the impression, bite reg, and opposing cast out to get a framework made. Wait, no that is not allowed. For some reason I am required to trim my own dies and mount the case myself first…to get the framework. I am no longer naïve enough to think that general dentists mount every single bridge case themselves. In fact, I KNOW they do not. ESPECIALLY in cases where you can get MI without bite reg. So why am I forced to waste another week sending out the impression to get poured up so I can trim the die and mount it myself while attempting to work around all my rotations…sigh. That is one example of why school just annoys me nowadays.

The framework try-in is tomorrow. Assuming it goes smoothly, this poor bastard may have his bridge by the second week of January. So this will take at least 3 months. Ouch.

But bitching aside, what do I like? Pretty much feeling like the big fish again. All the people that used to be scary or intimidating are truly pleasant to me at this point. I feel like the faculty is giving me more and more lee-way with cases. Discussing cases with classmates has become a regular occurrence with genuinely good debates and questions regarding what the appropriate treatment should be. You just are feeling close to becoming a dentist which I guess is how it should be given how close graduation is.

School feels like a home away from home now. I enjoy just sitting around the conference room, BSing with faculty, classmates or the one dental assistant in our clinic. I also like having NO class. I only have to be at school by 8am one day a week for urgent care/screening sessions.

Now the other huge difference between the third and fourth year is rotations. Third year you are on a bunch of in-house rotations. The only truly beneficial block was oral surgery (8-weeks of extractions is pretty sweet for any third year). The fourth year has REAL rotations though. And while my experience is a bit different from the majority (mainly in that I am gone 19 weeks as opposed to 10), it is still unique to the fourth year. In fact, accepting my invitation to the 2x2 rotation program was a great decision. Sure the overall complexities of the cases I get outside are not all that great, but the sheer volume of work is what makes up for it. I still do get the occasional crown or endo, but it is mostly directs, exams, and extractions. However, you generally see 6-10 patients per day (as opposed to 0-2) and you also get a glorious assistant. Yea there is a lot of pedo, but that has been GREAT for me. It has made me comfortable with a very large portion of dentistry.

My first stainless steel crown at the college took me 2.5 hours to complete and it still was opening the kid’s bite. The last SS crown I completed was last Thursday and it took me 15 minutes from start to finish (note the pulpotomy was already done at a prior visit). This would not have ever happened without the massive pediatric exposure that these rotations provide. I am planning a future post comparing rotations to the school so I will save my comments.

The final difference I am going to touch upon today is the licensure exams. Third year is stressful because you have a bunch of performance exams to get finished each semester. Fourth year is stressful because everything you have done so far won’t matter if you don’t get licensed. I can graduate, but if I don’t have my license, it sure will be hard to practice dentistry. That thought alone is terrifying. Now granted, I feel that once you hack up the 2k that this licensure exam costs, that pretty much gets you the license. Sure you may have to retake something, but I honestly have NEVER heard of anyone failing the retakes. I hope I’m not the first!

The exams are simply stressful, but each one you knock off just brings you that much closer to the light.

One more HUGE hurdle and about three smaller ones is all that stands in my way.

Closer and closer every day.

GPR Bound

Officially got offered a contract today. Next year I will be busting out dentistry over at Illinois Masonic. Nothing officially signed yet, so I will get into more details about the program in future posts. Needless to say, I am in very high spirits tonight.

Much like passing manikin boards or part II of the written exam, there is just this rush of pure euphoria. The soaking-in period should last a good week or so. I am on rotation so I am busting my ass off seeing 10ish patients per day but this was a nice bit of news.

While the stress wasn't as intense as the week leading up to finding out that I passed the manikin exam, it got pretty bad the last few days. As mentioned, I only applied to two programs, and while I got interviews at both, you really can't account for the luck factor involved in any application process. I feel like I interviewd well at both, so luckily my top choice panned out. Everytime my phone would start vibrating, my heart would crank up the pace for a few minutes. And so many times it was a friend or patient or even wrong number. BUT NOT TODAY!

All I know for sure is that I gotta buy a christmas present for one of my letter or rec writers because several of the interviewers mentioned how impressed they were with it. I wish I didn't sign away my right to read it because I'm damn curious now.

Pass NBDE part II - check
Pass Manikin CRDTS - check
Get into GPR - check
Pass patient CRDTS - taking in march
Don't die before graduation - pending

So there you have it, really not much left. I still have an endo performance exam to complete on a posterior tooth and a few implant cases to finish (surgeries already done); but otherwise I'm pretty much graduated. Holy crap.

Posts on the way:
D-4 Experience
Rotation v School

2/3

Done. I have one more major test to take before I can legally practice dentistry (assuming I also graduate).

Let me see if I can portray just exactly how stressful this crap is. So as explained, the mannikin exam is just as it sounds, we perform several dental procedures on a fake patient with plastic teeth. There are two sections: prosth and endo. Prosth involves prepping #9 all-ceramic, #5 PFM and #3 FGC. 3 and 5 are to be made as a bridge prep meaning the must draw together. Endo equates to a #14 access and #8 full RCT. If you fail ANY tooth from any section you must remediate the entire section. So if I have 100% on my bridge prep but leave an undercut on #9, I have to redo all the prosth section. This also costs 950 dollars...ghee.

OKOK, so now realize we have been practicing for this thing since the summer pretty much. I failed the summer mock mock exam. I also failed the mock exam we had this fall. The trend was not looking good. So imagine my utter jubilation when I finally found out my score this morning. PASS. And REALLLY passed too. No score was below 90 which washed away any and all dental self-confidence issues I had been experiencing over this exam.

But let me emphasize that this was a terrible process indeed. First off, the exam itself was extremely stressful. But that's not even the bad part. The bad part is waiting 26 days for them to actually grade it. TWENTY SIX DAYS. It wasn't so bad for the first two weeks because you know it will take awhile. But oh boy, this last week I was border line going insane with anticipation. To the point where I was having trouble sleeping, concentrating on school, doing ANYTHING. I'm sure I've lost a month off of my life simply do the accelerated aging all this stress has placed on my organs.

I though the joy of passing the written exam was going to be tough to beat. I was wrong, this definitely takes the cake. And I'm sure the only thing that will surpass this feeling shall be finishing that last portion come spring time. Knowing that it is finally over. Good lord I can't wait.

Now I can move on with my life and get out of the mire of simply not knowing. I have two GPR interviews coming up. Seeing as I only applied to two programs, I couldn't have asked for anything better. They both are in the next week so my focus must now shift off the academics and towards the future.

Just thought I'd throw this celebratory post up before I head off for the evening to continue taking in all the good vibes. The blue label is coming out tonight.

Off I go!

Out There

This is my first lap top post. I am writing this as I lay on a tiny bed in Rockford IL in a dumpy little duplex out behind the Rockford Memorial Hospital. I hate typing on these things. It feels so unnatural and the keys don't have the same feel.

I wonder what most people think of when they hear the word dental student. Hard work? Stressed? Insane? An amalgamation of the aforementioned descriptors (get it?). Or do they picture some dude sitting in his boxers on a bed after pounding down some taco bell typing about dentistry and dental related experiences. Sexy.

These rotations have been great though. The sheer volume of learning is expanded beyond what the traditional school setting is capable of. I mean just this last week at school, I spent about 5 hours of in-school time busting my ass catching up on paperwork and doing lab work that practicing dentists never perform. Why can't I send my impression out with an opposing cast/bite reg and get the bridge framework back? Why do I have to trim my own die and mount the case. Do they realize that this adds approximately 10 business days to the patient's already long-ass wait. I was so excited that I hammered this bridge prep out (my first one actually) in two appointments. But I probably won't deliver it until mid-January because of all the red tape.

I've said it many times, there is a window of maybe 60 minutes each day at school where I am truly learning and perfecting my craft. The other 5+ hours is completely worthless. This is coming from a fourth year student mind you, I would be pretty brash to say the same one year ago.

Did I mention the tuition is insane. My girlfriend and I will be combined over 500K at graduation. That's HALF A MILLION...geeeeh. Granted our combined income will be nice, but not .5 million nice...

Speaking of future. I got my second GPR interview last week. That makes me 2 for 2, not too shabby. I am really looking forward to the interviews which are both in the same week of november. Both programs have their pros and cons, I shall elaborate in future posts.

Back to the rotation. Today I got a great refresher course on emergency dentistry. A patient I was working on started out normal, but just sort of drifted off mid-procedure. At first I attributed this to sleep. The pulse-ox was good and I could get her carotid pulse fine. Still something clearly seemed off. Once the doc came in to check on me, he had me sit her up and verbally snapped her out of it. Now this clinic caters exclusively to mentally disabled patients, so you get some really tough cases. As such, sedation is used as necessary. However, some parents decide to self-medicate and not tell the dentist. As per today, this patient was loaded up on valium without us knowing. Needless to say, the doc was pissed and the mom lied about it. Ugh. Thankfully nothing bad happened, but it got me thinking.

WHAT THE HELL DO I DO IN THESE SITUATIONS!? This is PERFECT example of why I want to do a GPR. I have no confidence in handling emergent situations. Why is it tough? Becuase they are so freaking rare in dentistry that being experienced is near impossible. Thankfully my preceptor is extremely good at walking me through the more medical aspects of dentistry and he really boiled it down to the essentials. Airway, breathing, circulation, drugs, BAM. It is all stuff I've learned, but in a real emergency, the dentist needs to keep it together and know what the hell to do. None of it is complicated, it is a matter of staying calm and acting correctly.

Today was a "slow" day at this clinic, yet I saw 9 patients (4 which required ops/exts). Again, rotations = mondo experience (by dental student standards). It also serves as a blunt reminder that you are indeed "not the shit." I mean, this clinic has handed me my head on a platter more than once. Trying to place 2 back to back MO/DOs on a screaming punching 250-pound autistic adult in 15 minutes is extremely difficult and quite frankly, scary as hell. It truly is great though, because you walk out of there with a new confidence everyday. Even if your work wasn't anything to brag about, the amount of experience and simle comfort level with tough patients earned is unbelievably useful.

Speaking of which, it is time for me to hit the head followed by the hay. Getting up at 6am and working until 6pm is hard.

Keeping my fingers crossed that I passed CRDTS. I know I overtapered the distal of my molar to get the bridge to draw...but was it enough to fail? Gulp? My endo felt meh overall, who knows. I'm mentally preparing myself to retake the whole exam because that way I won't be crushed if it actually happens. And on the flip side, if I passed 1/2 of it or the entire thing, I will be pretty damn sassified.

Here's to good luck!

One Small Step...

Just finished up the official mannikin portion of the CRDTS test today. I am too exhausted for a full debriefing. Let's just say I didn't have any glaring mistakes, but my endo was definitely not my best work. You don't realize how exhausting this exam is.

I practiced a good six times including our mock exam. Each practice takes about 7 hours. Then you finally get to the real thing. By the time I was on my last procedure (full RCT #8) I was just out of gas. I think it's OK, but who knows. The good news is that I felt pretty similar walking out of this thing as I did walking out of the written exam that I took in August. Not super confident, but not down either. So hopefully the result will be the same. We won't know for about three weeks. I will brood over it for a day or so, then it will slowly leave the forefront of my mind until the grades show up...gulp.

I really hope I passed simply because I'd hate to spend another 900 bucks to retake it. Not to mention the arduous process of preparing and actually taking the exam.

We go from 7:30am until 4:00pm with really no true lunch break. That just tires you out. Especially when you are trying to make everything perfect.

Needless to say, I went out with some classmates for a few beers afterwards. So here I sit now, ready to just pop a movie in and relax with the lady.

I think I outlined this exam already so I won't even try to do it right now. I figured I'd post while in that hazy after-aura of just completing part of the most important exam in my life.

Whew. Now I have to recover tomorrow and get back in the trenches starting monday. I have to give a case presentation on thursday. Why the hell did I sign up for the first time slot? CURSE YOU PAST SELF!

Sorry for the lack of posts, just been all over the place with board prep and rotations and life experiences.

In other news, I got my first GPR interview coming up in november. 1 for 2 in interview offers so far. Haven't heard anything from the other yet. We will see.

I'll shoot for another D-4 experience post by the end of the month. No guarantees, just a goal!!

Sorry for slowness in response to emails, same excuse as above. I will get to them ASAP though.

And I'm done.