Periodontology, Overscheduling & More...
Hey everyone,
I hope you've had a great week! I'm back with another update on dental school and life in general, things have been pretty great recently, especially to do with uni and whatnot. Here's a quick rundown of what's been going on!
🦷 Dental Diary
At uni this week I've had the usual lectures on Wednesday, which were nothing too crazy, mostly about periodontology, and also some human diseases and their oral manifestations. When I was applying, I remember this was something I researched for my interview extensively because of how important this topic is, and I recommend you guys do the same if you're applying this year, more on that next week though!
At clinics this week, we were learning to do periodontal probing and charting, and this consisted of a BPE (a basic periodontal examination) and a 6 Point Pocket Chart.
For the BPE, we used a WHO probe which had 2 black bands, and we had to check the depths of periodontal pockets of each tooth, and record the worst measurements that were in each sextant (6th of the mouth). The BPE is a way to screen patients to help identify whether periodontal health is generally good or bad but doesn't help us diagnose a specific condition. The codes 0, 1, and 2 are generally for healthy or slightly inflamed gums, while codes 3 and 4 are for more severely unhealthy gums.
In cases where patients have a 3 or 4, then we would need to do the 6 point pocket chart, which is a much more detailed measurement, taking 6 depths for each tooth, measuring in mm this time instead of codes, and using a different probe this time that has increments at every millimetre.
The whole task, in general, was really useful, and hopefully, when I see patients I'll get lots of practice doing this with them too since a BPE is a requirement with every patient when examining them. It was really challenging finding a place to set my finger rest on the right-hand teeth, since I am right-handed, so as you might imagine, I couldn't find the space to do it, at least not on the same arch of the mouth! Developing these skills and habits will take time, and I should probably give myself more credit since it was literally my first attempt at this procedure!
🧠 Insight of the Week
The insight of this week was something I picked up on that I tend to do, and maybe some of you guys do this as well. When it comes to writing any sort of to-do list for daily tasks, I tend to overschedule this list. What I mean by this is that I put way too many tasks on there so it becomes unrealistic for me to get everything done.
There are some ways to get around this if you do this too sometimes, and one of these is called the daily highlight, a concept I heard from Ali Abdaal, where you pick one task that you must absolutely do, without failure. This is useful as it really helps you prioritise, but to be honest I find one task to be too little, especially as a student; I can't just do one lecture if I have 5 to do that day!
What I'm going to try starting tomorrow is something slightly different; I will pick 3 tasks that I need to do that day on a To-Do list, and everything else I need to do would be on a Might-Do list. This would help me keep up with all the different corners of my life while also prioritising the more urgent and important tasks.
If you wanna try this too, drop me a DM and let me know how it goes for you!
📚 Reading Log
I haven't really kept on top of my reading this week; I'm currently reading Piranesi, a mystery novel. It has quite a slow start which is probably why I'm not too far into it, but hopefully, by next week I'll have finished it and can give you guys a review of the book!
✍️ Applicant Tip of the Week
Building on top of last week's tip, when you guys have a list of interview questions and you've written some bullet point answers, you'll want to get hold of a webcam. If you have a laptop then it will probably already have one. You will want to answer your questions in front of the camera and record yourself. This is key to help build your confidence AND allow you to see which areas you need to improve on when it comes to preparing. For example. you may find that you often fidget or look away from the camera when you're stuck, or that you struggle and are slow when answering work experience questions, so you can pick up on these and actively work on removing those weaknesses. This is what I did when preparing and this method really changed the game for me, I really can't recommend it enough!! I went from being nervous and stuttering to actually building some confidence and clearly saying all my answers, so if you're going to start preparing for your interview soon, you have to give this a try!
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 or just wanna chat! Talk to you guys next week!
Omar Tabaqchali :)