Hey guys,
I laughed so hard from the previous post by Keyvan- but I do hope that your living situation gets better. I'm really thinking that if they're doing drugs, the school should provide you some other housing there. Have you notified anyone about this?
My rotation has been really great so far. I also see a lot of kids but to my surprise the Clay County Health department- Dental Program started seeing adults as well. I came here with low expectations but have been so pleased with the clinic and my living situation.
So, at first I was told that there is no AHEC housing close to the clinic and they asked the people in the community if anyone could provide me housing. Luckily a very nice family practice doctor offered her beautiful home to me and here I am in a huge house with access to internet, kitchen and staying in a spacious room. I have already started cooking in her kitchen and sharing the food with her since she doesn't like to cook and we spend our nights playing boggle or trying to find nerdy games on our iPads.
As far as the dental clinic, it's only about 5-10 mins away from this house which is awesome! There are two dentists (very nice older gentlemen) with 4 dental assistants and 2 dental hygienists. One of the dentists works only on Mondays and Tuesdays and he does all the extractions for kids and adults and SSCs and more complex cases for kids. The other dentist works all 5 days (Mon-Fri) and only does fillings. So the first 2 days I only hung out with the extraction dentist and he basically let me do whatever I wanted. I later found out that he used to be an orthodontist for many years before he decided that he wanted to do general dentistry before he completely retired (interesting huh?). The rest of the week the other dentist gave me all his appointments so I go by his schedule while he only checks the hygienists. It has been so great because I'm really getting a feel for the real world dentistry and what it's like to be an actual dentist in a rural dental clinic. I love the little kids here- they all have been super good. I had a 5 year old girl who got up after her filling a couple of days ago and hugged me and said "I want you to always be my dentist." That really made my day :).
One funny story is when I had a 26 yr old guy come in and the receptionist ran up to me before I saw the patient and she warned me that he has a really bad attitude and that I can get her if he causes me any trouble (being rude and such). Well as soon as the pt walked in his whole demeanor changed and he said "I would have shaved if I knew this". He then went on to tell me that he's been trying to pull out his tooth but all his attempts have failed and so he finally came to the dentist. I introduced myself and told him that I would be taking care of him. He said "YOU'RE GOING TO PULL MY TOOTH? GOOD LUCK WITH THAT". So when I finally extracted # 30, he was so happy and walked out with a smile on his face saying "I'll let you pull out any of my teeth any day." The receptionist was telling me that his attitude was completely different from when he was in the waiting room to when he walked out.
One thing that I've realized is that being in a rural area + a dental clinic = gross decay, no money, lack of education. I also found out that there is no fluoride in the water here and that is not helping the situation at all. And I was also told that the clinic I'm at doesn't really do amalgams because they started out as a pediatric clinic and so they only placed composite then and now it's too costly for them to add amalgam?! I saw a 11 yr old girl yesterday who had all these deep cavities and I'm thinking in my head wow how did her situation get so bad. First, she was super scared of the needle and I had to explain everything to her and finally convince her that it will just be a pinch. Well she did really well and said it wasn't bad at all. So I go to excavate the caries on #5 occlusal and it goes deep and deeper and finally I stop to feel the pulpal floor to see if I'm even getting close to any sound tooth structure and my explorer just goes right in the pulp (can we say carious pulp exposure). Then I found out that luckily there is a really nice endodontist in the area that treats the kids with Medicaid or HealthChoice for free so we referred her there. The dental assistant later told me that the reason why her teeth are in such bad shape is because her mother never brings her to the dentist and actually this time it was the grandmother who finally stepped up and brought her granddaughter. It was just so sad and I felt so bad for the kid because that seemed like child neglect to me.
I have another interesting/crazy story that I faced yesterday and today I found out that it is somehow related to Eric Rudolph (The bomber and terrorist from Murphy, NC!!!). Since I have already typed too much in this blog, I will share the story later so more to come...... ;)
Hoda
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