Time to Catch Up

Wow, three weeks since I last posted! I bet you all thought I had drowned in the Colorado floods!

In spite of the fact that I have family living in each of the cities that were hit the worst, none of them had any damage to their houses/cars/etc. Thank goodness! On Thursday the 12th, Aurora got pounded with rain and they decided to close the campus due to flooding. Although we live within 5 minutes of the school, it took us an hour and a half to get home because they completely closed off our street and we ended up going in a big circle with traffic. Before we left campus, two of Robbie's classmates decided to take advantage of the new lake developing.

Gotta love Dental Students.


Something else I've been busy with is making the invitations for my sister Altair's babyshower. They wanted to have more of a couples shower so I had to make sure the invitations weren't too cutesy (lest I should scare of some of their guy friends). We're going to have bratwurst and a baked potato bar so we decided to call it Babetoberfest (like Oktoberfest only a baby shower).

Robbie and I also headed up to Fort Collins last weekend for my sister's birthday. She had a Hawaiian themed party so I made a quick stop by the thrift store to grab a Hawaiian shirt before going over. As always, I had a great time holding my favorite niece, Olive.

Don't you just want to squeeze those adorable chubby legs and arms?!

This semester of Dental School has been flying by for both of us. I've been busy with work and Robbie has been crazy busy with studying and projects. In his Removables lab, they have been hard at work placing teeth in their wax up for dentures. One day this week I stayed on campus with him until about 7 while he and his lab partner worked on their denture.

This is the wax-up prior to having the teeth placed.

Apparently placing teeth in wax is a very messy process.

I'm always so impressed by him and the things he's learning!

This portion is ready to be sent to the lab to be fabricated into an upper denture. The pink wax that's holding the teeth is melted away and is replaced with acrylic by the lab.

If you're a Dental nerd or just curious about the process of Denture fabrication, here's a great video I found on YouTube (complete with a British narrator). Most General Practitioner Dentists do not place teeth in wax-ups themselves because it's too time consuming (the lab places the teeth). The school wants the students to know the process so they understand the need for all the measurements and specifications for their wax-ups.

My job is still going really well. Yesterday, my supervisor and I spent the whole day counting/organizing inventory since we don't have students in our clinic on Fridays. I'm getting a lot more familiar with the materials we have in the dispensary and where they are on the shelves (which, let me tell you, is quite a feat since there are SO MANY different materials). Robbie and I have both been getting over a cold, too. I got it first and decided to be nice and share it with him a few days later. We're both feeling a lot better now though.

Now you all know what we've been doing the last few weeks! I hope you found it very educational. :)

Proverbs for the Aspiring Dentist

Who would've thought that going from stay-at-home wife to 40 hours a week at the school would leave me with so little time?! I'm not complaining--because I'm definitely loving my job--I just feel so bad that I have been barely getting in one blog post a week!

Snapped this on my phone today. You can see the lovely Dental supplies in the background.

Like I said, I am absolutely loving my job! My supervisor and I get along really well and she's incredibly knowledgeable about Dental materials so I have been learning a lot from her. I am also really beginning to see why Dental School is so expensive. The sheer volume of materials required is astronomical and those supplies carry a hefty price tag.

My main tasks throughout the day include checking out instruments to the students, stocking treatment rooms, and sterilizing small things like x-ray rinns (the instruments get sent down to the sterilization department). As I mentioned in my first post about my job, I love working with the Dental Students. I'm starting to learn a lot of their names and they always wave at me when I see them around campus.

In getting to know them a little better, however, I'm realizing that Dental School can only prepare the students so much for being Dentists. Having the head knowledge of how to do dental procedures is only half the battle. If they don't learn how to interact with and care for people--whether that's their patients, their peers, or their future staff--they will struggle as a Dentist. There are a few students who come off as demanding and unappreciative and I can almost guarantee that they will have a high turnover rate of staff in their office someday if they don't change their behavior soon.

I am constantly telling Robbie how important it will be for him to show appreciation to his employees down the road. My childhood Dentist has had the same assistant and hygienist in his practice for over 20 years while another Dentist I know can barely get an assistant to stick around for 2 years! I doubt there is much difference in pay/benefits between the two; however, my childhood Dentist is pleasant to be around and makes a clear effort to take care of his staff while the other Dentist is often cranky and fault-finding. Some of the benefits of having staff long-term include that you aren't wasting time/money constantly training new employees, your staff will get to know your patients and build rapport with them, and your staff will be more likely to grow together into a smoothly functioning team (making your office more efficient and harmonious).

One of the best resources for knowing how to interact with others in a wise and life giving way is the book of Proverbs. It has recommendations on all kinds of situations that could come up in a Dental practice. Here are just a few examples:

1) How should I respond when a patient loses their cool and starts cussing out my staff?

A gentle answer turns away wrath but a harsh word stirs up anger. -Prov. 15:1

 2) Is it okay for me to recommend a more expensive procedure to my patient so I can make a little more money, even though the less expensive option would work just as well for them?

Wealth obtained by fraud dwindles, but the one who gathers by labor increases it. -Prov. 13:11

The acquisition of treasures by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor, the pursuit of death. -Prov. 21:6

3) I have a patient here in horrible pain and desperate need of treatment but he has no way to pay me right now.

He who shuts his ear to the cry of the poor will also cry himself and not be answered. -Prov. 21:13

4) My wife feels I'm working too many hours. She says when I come home, I don't have enough energy to play with the kids. Working this many hours has enabled me to bring a lot of revenue into my practice though!

Don't wear yourself out to get rich; stop giving your attention to it. -Prov. 23:4

5) I really need to add another Dental Assistant to my staff because my office is growing, but the people who have applied don't seem like that great of a fit for the position. Still, isn't hiring someone better than not having anyone for the job?

The one who hires a fool or who hires those passing by is like an archer who wounds everyone. -Prov. 26:10

6) I overheard some of my staff gossiping about another Dentist. The conversation sounded really interesting and I want to join in to hear more details. As long as the Dentist doesn't know we're talking about her, what could it hurt?

A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid a man who talks too much. -Prov. 20:19

A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends. -Prov. 16:28

7) My office manager just told me about a way we could bill the insurance to get more money by using a slightly different procedure code. We would be fudging the rules a little bit since it's not the exact procedure I did, but we would get payed more in the end.

Bread obtained by falsehood is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be filled with gravel. -Prov. 20:17

Better a poor man who lives with integrity than a rich man who distorts right and wrong. -Prov. 28:6

Puerto Rico Trip, Part 2

If you're interested in reading about the first day of our trip to Puerto Rico, click here.

On our second day in Puerto Rico, we went kayaking in Condado Lagoon just down the street from our hotel. For $40 total, we both got an individual kayak for an hour and a half. Our hope was that we would see a manatee in the lagoon as we had seen videos online, but no such luck. We did encounter some fun iguanas though!

Here's the little dock where we rented our kayaks.

We made the fun mistake of putting sunblock everywhere except our legs. My knee caps have never been so burned!

Robbie paddling his giant banana through the lagoon.

Robbie making friends with an iguana.

The iguana kindly posed for me.

After getting freshened up at our hotel, we decided we wanted to take a bus to Isla Verde, further east in San Juan. We knew #53 would take us where we wanted to go but got tired of waiting. When we saw bus #10 and it said it was going to Isla Verde, we decided to hop on. Unfortunately, it only took us to the very edge of Isla Verde then started heading south. We thought maybe if we stayed on it would continue back to the east, but we were sorely mistaken. After about twenty minutes in the wrong direction we decided to get off the bus and see if we could find our way back to where we were wanting to go.

Because we couldn't find or figure out which bus would get us back, we ended up walking four and a half miles under the Caribbean sun in the super high humidity. (Please note that San Juan is also very hilly so this wasn't a nice flat walk. Also, we were both wearing flip flops.) Needless to say, by the time we got to Isla Verde we were absolutely exhausted. We wondered down the beach looking for somewhere to eat and ended up in a little bar/grill where we shared nachos and a pina colada.

After some refreshments, we played in the ocean a little then hopped back on a bus to go back to our hotel. (Don't worry, it was the right bus this time!) On the plus side, we did get to see parts of the beach we wouldn't have had we not walked the length of it and we got some beautiful pictures.

Moral of the story: Trying to take a short cut can end up taking you in a completely wrong direction. Don't get on the 10 simply because you're tired of waiting for the 53. Be patient and wait for the 53.