I took the WREB on April 23-26 in Louisville. It was the most stressful, scary, and exciting time of my whole life.
***Endo- I had my central rejected due to a fractured crown. WTF? I handed that thing in one piece and it came back in 5 pieces. I handled that tooth 1 million times before that with no problems. I think they broke it. So I had to use a backup. My backup sucked, so I used a friend's that was slightly better. It was a lower incisor. It had a fat canal facial/lingually and the canal contricted to barely anything in the apical 2-3mm. I had nothing better to use. I trusted him on the WL he gave me.
Took me 40 min to set up b/c my stuff was unorganized. Lost 10 mins at the start. My post. tooth was #5. Access was stressful b/c the lingual pulp horn was way lower than the buccal. Took forever. I obturated fine. When I was cleaning out the chamber with a spoon excavator, I pulled the GP all the way out of the canal. I almost fainted. I took a file and pulled out the rest. I reobturated.
I only had 1.5 hr to go to do the anterior at this point. I had never done a lower incisor so I was freaked out. My access sucked b/c I was afraid to perf (that thing was tiny!). I used the WL my friend told me. I had no time to verify with X rays b/c time was running out. I filed quickly. I obturated. When I saw the final film, I wanted to die. 3-4mm short of the apex! I had a feeling I was done for. No time to fix it b/c the 4 hrs had passed.
Tips: Buy self developing film from Patterson, saves time. Do a central incisor and max 1st premolar so you can work on them at the same time with the rubber dam. Have plenty of backups, good ones. They need to be as good as your primaries. Buy extra sextants if you need to. Watch the clock and pace yourself.
***Perio- easy. Ran the cavitron on my chosen quad like 8 times. Hand scaled the rough spots.
***Operative- scary. No back ups and there was shadowing beyond DEJ for both in films.
DO alloy #4- Needed 3 mods. My box was like 2mm wide, maybe more. Alloy set up too fast when I was filling and it looked terrible. It fractured on the marginal ridge when checking occlusion. I drilled it out and placed it again. No pink slips.
ML resin #8- Needed 3 mods. Affected dentin kept showing up on axial wall of prep. Almost pulped tooth. It was pink. I suspected there might still be decay. But I was too freaked out at this point to poke with the explorer b/c it would start bleeding. Wrote out good explanation to examiners to be careful and that I thought there was still decay. Came back from the check with no pink slip. Placed Vitrabond, filled it, and came back with no pink slip.
***Tx plan test – Didn't study. Easy. Got a pedo case.
***Prosth and perio computer – Didn't study b/c I figured I should know this stuff. My school prepared me well. Thought it was easy.
2 weeks later got the letter. Failed endo.
But I knew I had screwed it up. Score was 2.88!!! Just 0.12 more. Operative was 3.3. Tx planning was 4.45. Perio clinical was 95%. Perio computer was 89.6%. Prosth computer was 95%.
Retook endo June 5-8 at USC in LA, Cali. This time I came prepared. I had 3 sets of teeth. 3 #8s and 3 #12s. No rejections. Gave 2 of the back ups to my friend who took it with me. I'm glad I could help him out b/c he ended up needing them. It took me the entire 4 hrs to do it. I accessed, shaped, and obturated both teeth at the same time. That way, I didn't have to fiddle with the dam a million times extra. USC had plenty of X ray machines and developers. I saw in my final films that I had no major errors, just puffs of sealer beyond both apices. Fill was 1 – 1.5 mm from apex. I literally just missed the time penalty. I turned in my teeth like 30 sec after the 4 hr mark. I know I should not have obsessed so much with my access and shaping, but I knew I had to do it perfectly. I could not afford to fail again. The 4 hrs felt like 1 hr. I wanted to faint when it was over.
I had a good feeling coming out of it the 2nd time around.
I got my results today and I PASSED!
It was the longest two weeks of waiting ever! Now I can finally start working as a dentist. Good luck to the rest of you! And if you failed, pick your head up and try again. I'm glad I did.
