“Deserving” to Feel Confident!
Hey everyone,
I hope you have all had a great week! Mine has certainly been a busy one, with clinical exams, humanities presentations, and back-to-back patients on the clinic!
🦷 Dental Diary
This week on clinics I had a chance at redemption! To give some context, this year we have to complete 10 clinical exams on patients called CAFs, and in November I was attempting to pass my ID block CAF, but when I injected I had missed the lingual nerve and therefore failed that CAF. This experience drove me to become better and to gain more experience with giving injections specifically ID blocks. I promised myself that I wouldn’t resit the CAF until I had done another 5 ID blocks, and that is exactly what I did. On top of that, I had spent extra time reading about the complications of the injection, relevant medical history, and how it would impact giving this type of anaesthesia.
I felt that by this point, I earned a pass on this exam because of all the work I had put in, and that is exactly what I got! I’m grateful to be up another exam, but I do have a lot left to go, with not many clinical sessions left this year, so it’s time for me to step it up and focus on getting as many done as I can.
We also had a few submissions this week for our Clinical Humanities module, which I completed, but I felt that I had struggled with presenting when we were doing the presentation portion of the module, and that is something I will want to improve going forward. This, again though, will come the more preparation I do.
🧠 Insight of the Week
Failing that clinical exam a few months ago affected my confidence, and forced me to re-assess how I approached clinical dentistry and how I see and treat my patients. I learned that with every patient, there must be an element of preparation or confidence that cannot be faked. Before any difficult case, I learned that it is necessary to read as much as I can around the subject, to ask my tutors questions, and ultimately, preparation is the one key to true confidence.
The main lesson I took away from this is that there is no getting around the hard work it takes to perform well in anything. The only way to overcome failure is to face it head-on and be on the offensive. I remember how I felt attempting that exam the first time around, how I was unsure of how I was going to do because I had only ever done 1 ID block before sitting the exam, and it was almost a year prior; truthfully I didn’t deserve to feel confident at the time. Since then, racking up a handful of ID blocks and watching every YouTube video under the sun about technique meant this exam was just another ID block, and was nothing special.
💉 Clinical Revelation
The clinical tip I learned recently is about ID blocks, and it becomes useful when you have learned the anatomy associated with it, and it is to visualise the tip of the needle as you inject, hit bone, and manipulate the needle. Imagine the needle had a camera at its tip. I found that this helps with locating the injection site. I will say that this was only useful once I learned my anatomy, so make sure you do that, then give this a try!
Once again, if you can take a minute to fill out this survey for a project I am working on, that would be much appreciated! PLEASE CLICK HERE I am working on an educational product aimed at dental students and young dentists and I want to hear from you guys so I can give you as much value as I possibly could!
That's all for this week, I hope you guys have a great next week! If you are enjoying this weekly email thing I'm doing or if you have any suggestions, please let me know, my Instagram is always open if you'd like any advice! Talk to you guys next week!
Get Better Today!
Omar Tabaqchali :)