Culminating Blog Reflection

    During the time of completing my capstone stone project I had to do a lot of thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity in order to complete it. The piece that really required a lot of thinking was me even deciding on a topic to do the essay on. I really wanted it to be something interesting but felt like their was nothing interesting I could choose that was interesting in this career. I spoke to my mentor about it and she had a lot of ideas but the one that seemed to stick out to me the most was her talking about how many people walk into her office everyday and either have or are on the verge of getting gingivitis. Now that I had an idea of what I wanted to do it on I began to ask my mentor more questions about what' goes on in the office and why we even need to go in to see the dentist every six months. Finally I decide since she had told me brushing and flossing won't get the job done to keep your pith healthy I would combine talking about disease that can occur in your mouth and how brushing and flossing couldn't get rid of them.another key thing in this project was communication. At first I was very shy to even talk to my mentor but then I realized if I didn't talk to her I wasn't going to be able to get anything done. Another big reason why I needed to use communication was because I had to talk with a lot of the patients and my mentor knew I was shy so she really pushed me to do so. Collaboration took place when my mentor was helping me come up with a topic to write my essay on. Lastly we used creativity when also picking an essay topic the wasn't boring to read about.

    One thing I feel like I gained from this project was me becoming sociable. I feel like when I first started coming into the office and being around the office I was scared to speak because I was I afraid my mentor might think the questions I was asking were dumb. I was scared to speak to the patients because I thought they might consider me a bother. By the end of the project I found my self asking more questions and becoming confident when I spoke with patients. I feel like me becoming less shy help me both personally and socially. I feel like this helped me personally because I use to be to shy to do just about anything. For example I was way to shy to order my own food at restaurants, call places to make appointments, or during school when teachers let you choose your own groups I wouldn't ask anyone to let me be in their group. This project helped me gain a new type of confidence and I'm happy I got to do it.

    A challenge that I remembered in particular when going into this project was me having to see my mentor give her patients shots because I hate them so much. I remember telling my mom I didn't want to  go int to even see my mentor for this reason. This was also one of the things that determined wether I wanted to pursue this as a career or not. I over came this challenge by just sucking it up and watch the process happen to the patient. My mentor handled her giving the the shot like it was nothing she knew what she was doing and she got it done quick. I thought to myself if she could do it I could so it and eventually I got over it. Another challenge I had to overcome was like I said before me being so shy. In this career you can not be shy you have to be talking to people all day. Communicating is huge part of this job it is how you know what is going on with your patient and during the work you do on the patient it is a way to keep your pairing clam. Me begging to talk more was not just something that came easily. I hade to get more comfortable with the environment first and before I knew I found myself chatting away with everyone in the office.

    Overall I really like the outcome of having to do this project. I think this project made me grow more as a person and mature a little. It really helped me with my future because I have decided I really want to be a dental hygienist. I love the atmosphere of being in an office and I like the feeling you get when you help people. The satisfaction of knowing you helped someone is a great feeling which I hope to receive all the time once I graduate and become a dental hygienist.
 

Last meeting

May 4, 2014

Today my mentor and I decide to meet at her house to go over the book she had gave me and see if I understood everything fine. To sum up the chapter she had advised me to read, it basically talked about how dental hygienist play many roles in their job.  Their are five roles they are being an educator, advocate, researcher, administrator, and a clinician. I will go into further detail about these when I do my physical project. I really liked the book and felt like it was one of the best things I could read to really learn about the career. Whole at my mentors how we discussed the book and she asked if I had any question I had a few but their was one to me that was the most important. When reading through the roles I never really understood what an advocate was.once she explained to me what an advocate did I felt to me it was one of the most important roles ah theist can play. Basically an advocate is their to help and support the patient . They also being awareness to health problems. To me this is the most important role because when you think about it people have trouble doing things with out support from anyone. It's like when your parents support tough decision you make. I felt like some of the roles in the book were things you should use in every day life liking the role of being an advocate. Learning about the roles dental hygienist play made me want to peruse the career even more than I did because you are helping people in so many different ways. 

Time  logged for session: 1 hr

Total time logged: 25 hrs

Fourth meeting

April 30, 2014

Today as soon as I got their we got straight to work. To my surprise today when measuring teeth my mentor did something a little but different. Usually when logging the measurements into the computer she calls over a dental assistant to help her do the job, but today she spoke into a microphone where the computer was able to understand the measurements she was speaking into the microphone and log the measurements in for her. It was cool because I never really realized how advanced technology was and was surprised it was able to do that. It was also surprising me cause right then I realized how dental hygienist have to rely on technology and how much my mentor uses her computer. You use a computer for pretty much everything in the office like finding the patients old records and updating new things into their files. Another cool thing that I didn't expect to see today was the dentist do a filling on a cavity. It caught me by surprise because the dentist whose name is Mr. B just called me over randomly to watch. While being their I not only got to see what dentist do but the job of a dental assistant. Dental assistants have to remember all the different tools and really have to move at a quick pace to keep up with all the work the dentist is doing on the patient. As for the cavity filling it looked really different from what it feels like their doing in your mouth. It amazes me each time I watch a cleaning proceeder that when I'm in the patients chair all the things I'm seeing are have happened to me as we'll. overall today was a pretty interesting day and I still am excited and hope to pursue this career.

Time logged for this session: 2 hrs

Total time logged: 24hrs