May blog

I said goodbye to my mentorship and started on my presentation.

April Blog

This past month has been mostly doing my daily work routine with my mentors in the Pomona dental clinic, Trance and Dental Spa. They gave me ideas for different activities for my senior project as well as what could be a fun activity as a hook activity. One example for my hook activity was to ask people if they knew the correct way to brush their teeth. When it seems that everyone thinks they know, I want to test it out by having everyone take their little cups of mouthwash and see the what they have doing to wrong because the specific one I am giving stains the teeth to reveal missed spots when brushing their teeth. This is to show everyone that people in the community think they know the basics of dental care but in reality they don't. Of course in the end of the hook activity they will have another cup filled with water to take off the mouthwash.

March Blog

Claremont Dental Clinic

I have been trying to contact my second mentorship in Claremont and they have been giving me the same answer every time. When the secretary picks up, I ask her if I could come in to work and she tells me that they are either busy, which does not make sense since that is a good thing for me to see what it is like being in a busy schedule at a dental clinic. Another thing that upsets me is that since the beginning of march, I have left messages at the front desk about sending in my interview questions by email or try to make a quick appointment with the doctor but I have not received one call or email about any scheduled appointment to make the interview still. I am planning on going to the dental clinic at speak with them in person because this has gone way to far to set up ONE appointment.

February Blog

I was calming down a new patient for their treatment in Pomona, and the patient was getting worried about having to numb her mouth. But since I was already a patient as well as knowing the technique that the doctor does to the patient when injecting the syringe, I explained to them that it goes really quick and painless, and the patient was beginning to relax. One of the nurses helped me more by going into more in depth on what else the doctor does in the procedure with the injection, to make it painless as possible they heat up the medicine to match the body temperature so the patient doesn't feel that cold medicine being injected in. Once the patient was in the chair and the doctor was injecting the numbing medicine, the doctor shakes the patient's cheek to distract as she injects the syringe. After a couple minutes of waiting for the numbing to come into affect, I was asking the patient on the technique and she said it felt like a small mosquito bite. From their on she liked how they staff treated her like she was already a close member of the family, The patient was comfortably talking to the dental staff like she known them for a long time.

January Blog

As I was working at the Claremont dental clinic, I was talking to one of the nurses and she explained to me this particular machine can make crowns and veneers; it saves more time for them as well as the patients instead of having one particular tooth to be sent to the lab and waiting for days to recieve it. As you see in the video how a special type of liquid is being sprayed onto the block of the tooth model material, this is to shape the desired model for a crown or veneer. This roughly takes about 10 minutes to shape it from a block into the desired tooth model. Then after that they go into the mini lab and shape the crown or veneer more to fit the patient's structure of their teeth. Then after that they paint the crown or veneer to match the color of the patient's teeth and put it into another machine to let it dry and seal in the color and formation of the crown or veneer.

December Post

During my winter vacation I have spent working at both clinics. At the Claremont clinic, I was able to get hands on experience as well as know the layout of how the workers are. I was able to learn from the nurses how they setup and process the dental equipment as well as helping them in getting their equipment while they were treating the patient. I also met new interns during my work days and the nurses gave them advice and guidelines for them when working in the clinic. In my mentor's clinic in Pomona, I helped them out as well as know how a lot of people were coming to the clinic more happy because of how they were offered organic snacks for them as they wait for their appointment.

November Blog

My mentor was asking me what I should add onto her dental clinic's facebook page, and I suggested making a flyer about their monthly offers. I wanted to keep on doing these monthly offers which can lead to attracting other clients as well as suggesting to decorate the clinic for monthly holidays such as December and February. This will result in having clients see how much we care about providing them with latest deals and offers since some families are having financial problems while treating them as if the clinic was their second home. I also was trying to find my second mentor for the first component project, and the clinic I went to is called Smile Design. I am still waiting on their approval for me to come in as a shadow since it is a high demographic area.

October Blog

 For my mentorship, I created a Facebook business page for my mentor's clinic. In order to get it approved, I have to run it by everyone including the nurses as well. I will soon talk to my mentor more about doing upcoming offers or specials for months to come.

Connecting with Patients

Yesterday I went to my mentor's clinic and she wasn't there but one of the other dentists named Dr. Chi who was working on particular patient, which was the beginning process of creating dentures for the patient. As he was doing that, the patient was letting me talk to her about how and why she has chosen to stay as a patient at my mentor's clinic. She explained that how they always talk to her like a normal human being instead from her personal past experiences from other clinics. She explained how she didn't feel like she was being treated well and being seen as a number from the past dental clinics. With my mentor's clinic she explained how the dentists were talking to her the way she wants them to. After the procedure was done the patient and I were talking to one another to get to know each a bit better. She explained about her personal past and it made me see how much she has been through. When the patient was leaving the dentists and my second mentor was talking to me that it was good how I was easily connecting with the patient because they explained to me that you must adapt yourself to how the patient is when coming to their clinics.