Finally we got to work on some patients! My first day went really well, especially considering these procedures are completely new to me and I have never assisted before. Thankfully, Terry is really patient and laid back, he didn't mind coaching me along and waiting for me, as I was a bit slow at the beginning of the day. By the end of the day I think I had a pretty good grasp on things.
Procedures are basic here...radiographs, restorations or extractions, and that's about it. Dental IQ is extremely low and most people don't brush their teeth at all. The local philosophy is basically that if it doesn't hurt there isn't a problem. Most people came in with huge cavities and just wanted to have the tooth extracted. So that is what we would do. Other people would have four teeth remaining on the top, for example, and we had to give them a choice of; one - leave them until they are painful and need to be extracted; or two - pull them out now before they get painful so they can get dentures. Not having teeth is commonplace up here...it's very, very sad.
On a happier note, I have a cute story for you...We had a patient who was about nine years old today. Terry was asking him a bunch of questions about his teeth and as far as I could tell the child was not answering, but Terry kept on asking different questions and he seemed to be satisfied by some sort of response . They clearly had some sort of communication going on that I was not aware of. Then he looked over at the boys father and said "show her how you say yes and no up here". The father looked at me, raised his eyebrows as high as they could go, and that meant 'yes'. Then he furrowed his brow, squashed his nose and squinted his eyes, and that means 'no'. Makes sense to me! As I was talking to the little boy, he was much happier to use facial expressions than to speak. It was so cute to see his little face wide with expression when I spoke with him. In case you are worried as to why the little boy was here to see us, he just needed a small restoration and I made sure to teach him about keeping his mouth healthy.
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