1 semester of dental school done, 8 more to go!

I've finally recovered from the hangover that finals week left me in after 3 days of laying around on the couch. For the first time in my life these past 2 weeks, I went about my day dragging my feet, praying that lecture would never end. Mainly because that meant another endless night of meticulous studying for finals. This may have been the first time in a very long time that I finished a test and felt like I was now leaving the fate of my grades to God. Not to say that I did poorly this semester but simply that for the first time in my college career I felt out of control... But before I explain anything about school I figured I'd start this post with highlights from this past month. Early this month, Regan and I went to the Drake concert and I'm disappointed to admit that it was worse than the Goo Goo Dolls concert we went to at Case!!! The opening act consisted of multiple local rappers that were atrocious and Drake kept talking to the crowd, "blah, blah, blah". For being a huge fan I was extremely disappointed. Another fun thing I did was participate in a mouth guard lab where I learned how to make custom fitted mouth guards. For atheletes, there are some pros and cons.  The upside is comfort and safety. You're AT LEAST 6X  more likely to receive a concussion with an over the counter product but you pay a lot more, roughly $150+ vs $20 for the professional one. So pick your poison. And last but not least, I'm officially CPR certified! Your in good hands if the opportunity presents itself but lets pray for both of our sake that it doesn't.

[Now back to school but proceed with caution.... I'll try to avoid excessive gory detail]

...Pre-dental students listen up because I about to give you the single most important tool necessary for accomplishing your goals in dental school: time management. I may have already hinted at this in previous posts but I cannot explain to you how crucial it is. Time management and a strong will are a two item recipe for success when coupled, like: Simon and Garfunkel; Scooby and Shaggy; Batman and Robin. A useful study tip I've learned  regarding time management and studying for finals is that you have to strategically divide your time studying certain topics in one class, as well as strategically divide time among classes. For example, I had 4 finals this past week: Preventative Periodontics, ACE Public Health Dentistry, Oral Histology and Heart & Lung in Health and Disease. The majority of our classes are arranged in that we have one main course director and then a multitude of guest lectures from dentist, to medical doctors, to pharmacist, and specialist that are better suited in that particular field. So in a class like Heart & Lung we had a total of 47 hours of lecture divided differently among each lecturer who then submit a number of questions proportionate to their class time. Its important you focus your study time on the lectures with the most hours.. which doesn't necessarily mean it had the largest amount of material or the most difficult. For instance, in Oral Histology we had loads of detail regarding tooth development but we also had 4 hours of lecture from a pathologist that covered roughly 200 slides of  >50 something different diseases and disorders. There was only 10 questions on that material out of 50 total, so what do you do about that when studying? If your me, you spend an hour on that the day before the test (clearly not enough) and go to bed with your hands and feet pre-tied together for the exam in the morning. The biggest take-away message I received this semester is to study often, study the right material, and prioritize what's important.... Which also means more delegating in student council.... jk.... but not really :-D

In the professional community they say that the hardest thing about the journey is getting into school and I whole-heartedly agree. Even with a 3.8 GPA, 90th percentile DAT, and LOADS of extracurricular activities/volunteer experience your still not guaranteed a seat with the dental school of your choice or a seat anywhere for that matter! So once your in, your in which explains why most dental students choose to cruise by and enjoy their lives in school while doing enough to pass. In parting, before I throw myself upon my big comfy couch I will share the one thing I learned about myself from finals week and its that I don't want to specialize. At least at this point in time... but I hope you've enjoyed my blog so far. I'll be adding one more post about our Healthy Smiles Sealant Program which lasts for 2 weeks starting next week and ends for X-mas break which commences on Dec. 9th. Adios muchachos!

My professional mouthguard with flare to intimidate the competition

First time in the ortho clinic placing sealants on our partners

You can't see it real well but we're all have our guards in

Not sure if I've posted this but they're pretty enough to post more than twice

A molar cookie. compliments to Niki

Regan and I nose bleed at the concert

This is probably how I always look

A group of 12 of us went to the Monsters hockey game. There was a group of 26 really loud students behind us.. turned out to be the Med students from our school. Small world.... or small arena? 

Selling this if anyone is interested. I'll make you a deal, I promise!

A CPR class pic I stole offline

Sealants!

Vascular what?

Its mid-week and we have finals next week.... burned....out.....

The Calm Before the Storm

Hey, I know most of you are thinking, "I'm going to stop reading this blog if Anthony is going to update it like twice a decade"... and I'm sorry. I understand deleting my Facebook has made it difficult for my friends and family to check on how I'm doing and yes, I am suffering :-P. I'm already burned out and this is our last week of class before finals week (GASP!) Sometimes I wonder how I'm going to get stuff done but  I end up getting through it... definitely God's blessings...but I don't want to be a downer. Although this will be a very dreadful 2 weeks of studying I get to see my family and close friends in a month, wooohooo! After finals week we have Thanksgiving Break and come back to participate in our Sealants Program (no classes), you know, the program I mentioned about visiting elementary schools for 2 weeks and placing sealants on 3rd and 6th graders? That will be a relief since we'll get to apply new found knowledge and improve on our hand speed. Upfront, I'll inform you that I will NEVER do Pediatric Dentistry as that in my eyes is glorified baby sitting. BUT I am excited to get out in the community and improve upon the health of these young children.

The semester is almost over and I'm surprised at how much I've actually learned. I know that sounds weird and it's difficult to explain but I feel accomplished thus far to know so much about the mouth and overall health in general! =] I'm finally starting to feel like a healthcare provider even though that's a long ways away. Minor things that happen to be standing in the way include this semesters finals. This coming finals week we have a final a day for four days in this order: Preventative Periodontics, Public Health, Oral Histology, and last but not least Heart and Lung Anatomy. In just about five weeks we have 47 hours alone of Heart and Lung Anatomy.. no joke! In an undergraduate course that would be about 5 hours a week for 9 weeks.We got that dose in half the time. You might wonder why Heart & Lung? and I won't go in to too much detail but it is imperative that we understand our patients overall health in order to treat and prescribe effectively. Or else there could be many complications during major procedures. Classes overall have been interesting though. Oral Histology has been a semi-cool class learning the nitty and gritty on tooth development. Preventative Perio has taught us how to do prophys, identify healthy gingiva vs. gingivitis or periodontitis as well as many, many other exciting things... I'm still trying to view our Public Health class in positive lighting but I can't help but feel like aside from learning how to apply sealants I haven't taken away much more than that. Early on we learned a lot about public health and strategies on how to tackle health issues on a community level but those lectures have died down.

Life outside of school has been great. So much as happened that I feel bad because I can't really provide any details off the top of my head. Halloween was the highlight of the past month as we all got together and had a group Thanksgiving dinner in our costumes. After dinner we had "a few drinks" and then went to an annual Halloween party the Dental Fraternity holds every year. It was a blast! Dental Students are a lot more fun than most people would imagine. Free alcohol, dancing, music and lots of crazy costumes; it was good times. But I should probably get back to studying... I'm losing solid ground while the clock keeps ticking.

My new couch =]

 My amazing gf and classmate as ninja turtles. Plus, some other Halloween photos

These are my new Oakley prescription glasses! My vision insurance reduces the price by 40-50%... nice huh?!

Eat that Frog!

"..imagine that every day, at some point, you have to swallow a slimy, live frog. It doesn’t matter whether you do it first thing in the morning or at 11:59 p.m., but you’ve got to swallow it at some point. Why not do it as soon as possible so you don’t have to dread it all day long? No matter what else happens throughout the day, nothing could be worse than swallowing the frog. The "frog" represents the academic tasks in a college student’s life that they do not enjoy doing (or any dreadful task for that matter)."


Before arriving in Cleveland, I had never heard this analogy but when I did it made perfect sense. During orientation week the Dean of our dental school spoke to us over dinner and shared this message for achieving success during our tenure at Case. Although it seems like a simple message, its easier said than done. Like most people, I struggle with productivity... especially when tasks start to accumulate. But I'm grateful that he endowed this wisdom to our class because the message has stuck to my subconscious.... whether I actually swallow the frog early or not. 

Id be thankful to have to swallow this frog instead of the BIG UGLY one known as "finals week"!

Pictures 10/18/2011

Before....

After!

Crazy bridge separating West from East Cleveland... people in Cleveland claim a side (seriously)

Market!

mmmmm........

Where the Cleveland Indians play

@ Bed Bath & Beyond. complimentary of Regan L. Farmer

The tooth brush we were all given for free by Oral B

Hey there!

After our Dental Anatomy Final

What happens when you've been in class for 8 HOURS!

"I want it all, that's why I strive for it"

Week in and week out the weekends always feel like it'll never come. Yet, looking back time continues to keep flying by. It's been 2 weeks since I updated this so I'll do my best to include the details. The week following my last post was our first truly "intense" week in my opinion. We had a waxing competency on what is arguably the hardest aesthetic tooth to wax on Monday. Then we had a final that Friday in a class that is very important for the national boards that we will be taking next year. Between the two exams and bouncing around like a pin ball as the class president on top of taking care of personal stuff I stayed pretty busy. I won't complain though because the saying goes, "if you need something done, give the task to a busy man" and I enjoy being occupied. Aside from the meetings and altering our class schedule when it needs it, the job hasn't been all that bad. This last week we started a semi clean slate so I plan on getting the fundraising started. Each class is responsible for raising $1500 a year in order to have a combined $10,000 for our senior banquet. Sounds like a lot huh?

This past week was a semi brand new week for my class. We dropped a class (the one we took our final in) and picked up 2 more. So our current schedule now consists of 5 classes: Outreach Preventative Dentistry (for our sealant's program), Dental Anatomy, Preventative Periodontics, Oral Histology, and Heart and Lung in Health and Disease. The latter two are the newest edition. Heart and Lung anatomy so far is very Latin intensive and as detailed as it gets about well... heart and lung anatomy!,..as well as the ENTIRE thorax. We have our first lecture in Oral Histology this coming week so my next post will talk more about that later. In just 2 months, we have a very good understanding about most of the mouth: the gums and teeth, the development and eruption stages, central occlusion; we can also place sealants and are on our way to being able to perform prophys (cleanings, for the lamen). Its pretty exciting since we've learned so much but we still have a VERY long way to go. I can't wait to learn how to drill :-P We ended this week by learning how to take a patients blood pressure with a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff and how to do an oral cancer screening. 

On to my personal life, I've learned a few things about Cleveland. If I haven't mentioned this before the driving is TERRIBLE! People here have no respect for a red light and an intersection. You would be surprised to see how many cars go through blatantly red lights!!! I'd say 1 in 2 people go straight through it or have the nose of their car in on coming traffic. It makes me very hesitant to purchase a car out here. Also, imagine your driving down a 2 lane road on your way to the grocery store. Your in the outside lane and you notice there's a car parked in this lane against the curb.... WAIT WHAT??? In Cleveland, you can park your car on the side of the road on a busy street. In MOST places their is a separate "lane" for metered parking.. here its just in the driving lane. Aside from the hazardous driving, there are some very pretty places to visit. 

Regan and I have kept our weekends exciting by exploring the outdoors around here. We went to the beach last weekend and it was lots of fun. Its amazing because on the great lakes, the lake is so big that looking out on to the lake is just like looking out into the ocean. Weird right? We also checked out the local science center which included a wild life rehabilitation center so that was cool. Lots of animals up close and personal for free. We witnessed a massive turtle attempt to climb over its pen, fall over on its back side. It was comical.. but we had to help it over or it would have probably died there looking up towards the sky. Lastly, my school offered a free concert to its students for our Homecoming/Alumni Weekend. The band that performed was the Goo Goo Dolls. I felt so old at that concert when I realized that I knew most the songs and bc I was 11 (1998) when they released their hit single, "Iris", from The City of Angels. The pre-concert stuff was pretty cool/nerdy. The cool part was that they had free refreshments and snacks which included tiramisu, fudge bars, fruit, cheese & crackers, coffee, peach champagne (pretty snazzzzzyyy) but along the walls were exhibits. These weren't your average exhibits though.... most of them were in research like nanotechnology for medical advancements, and medical manicans that simulate real emergency situations for students.. to each their own? The school I attend is known nationally, and globally as one of the best research institutions and one of the better undergraduate universities (not to mention its phenominal graduate programs ;-)) 

But that's enough for now. Tomorrow I have a very intense final in Dental Anatomy which won't be an easy grade. Our professor writes questions for the National Boards so she is relentless. I feel very confident that I will do well but I need to get my beauty sleep. Have a fantastic week, thanks for reading! Ciao ;)

So much to say, so little time!

I never know where to begin... but that's pretty much the story of my life =]

The past month for me has been a haze. Until last week, I couldn't shake this funk. I couldn't concentrate/focus on anything, not lecture, not waxing, not studying, not even my own thoughts for almost 4 weeks! I'm thankful to say the least that I snapped out of it. Just woke up one morning and thought, I need to get this show on the road and be proactive because this cruise control is doing nothing for me.

But inevitably I would have been forced out of this haze one way or another by the midterm and final coming this week. This will be the second midterm in Dental Anatomy and will cover the molars and baby teeth (that's 26 teeth, every little detail.. and that's only part of it). Although it's important that we know the teeth inside and out, I'm more interested in getting to the physiology  and the way the teeth come together in occlusion! It takes a special person I guess to be excited to learn this stuff, haha. My final is on Friday in Foundations in Life Sciences and woohoo is that one going to be a blast! It's not that I find the information difficult but that there is so much to retain for one test. For example we have had 5 weeks of class and covered subjects like medical genetics, nutrition, metabolism, cellular biology each in a day... talk about a refresher course. Studying this past week and this weekend have been exhausting to say the least. I'm looking forward to what memories this weekend has in store for me.. or lack there of ;-)

In the past couple weeks we have started learning more about the gums (gingiva) in Preventative Periodontics and learned more in depth how to do scaling and cleaning with our instruments in the lab. This coming week the group I was assigned to starts learning how to apply sealants to the pits and fissures of the 6 yr molars. For the remaining 2/3 weeks of the semester we travel to Cleveland elementary schools to place sealants on 3rd graders; I'm very excited! I will explain more and have pictures when that time comes.

As for my personal life, the rain has put a real damper on my exploration of Cleveland. Regan and I did get to visit the zoo last weekend and it was awesome of course. Regan had been looking forward to it since we arrived in OH so it was definitely past due on the list of "to-do's". We also went to the Cleveland Indians game where we were rained on the whole game since they don't have a retractable roof like the Seattle Mariners! ...get with it Cleveland. At least we got to go home and put on comfortable clothes and watch movies the rest of the night.

To add some excitement to my week I managed to end up in the ER last Thursday to receive stitches on my chin. During my flag football game, a teammate and I ran straight into each other. My face, his elbow... unfortunately, I have nothing to show for it except for 6 stitches. I'm going to start telling people "at least I came out of that collision alive" just to make myself feel better :) Flag football has been a stress outlet for me since it gets me out of the books and doing physical activity. Our team is great and we definitely have lots of fun when we're out there.

I'm sorry if I didn't provide enough this time around... It's definitely getting a little harder to find time to blog when I'm not studying. I think I need to find a new book to read so that I can open up my imagination while I'm cooped up in doors, especially before the snow rolls in! If you have any suggestions for books, please leave a comment, or text, or email, or talk to me in person! Anyways, I have to get back to the trenches and prepare for my battle with Dental Anatomy tomorrow. Wish me luck &Thanks for listening =]


I promised photos. Even if they are sort of random. I'll give much better ones next time, I promise! The first and last one are some my favorites

 Reminds me of coca cola for some reason

 Coolest animal on the planet!

 Look at the animal I found ;)