Just about to start clinic (finally)

[stdmufin27]

So, I'm wasting time because i simply can't stomach the worthlessness of renal pharmacology any longer. Anyways, i was just curious if anyone had some helpful tips on surviving the clinic and getting all of the competencies completed on time. Thanks in advance.

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[Edentulator]

I guess that depends a lot on how booking and patient assignments work at your school.

If it's similar to mine though, the best advice I can give you is to be very hardnosed when it comes to patient management. The first time someone cancels at the last minute or doesn't show up, axe them. Lay out your expectations of them on day one. If you DO decide to give them another chance, tell them "If you cancel again, I will not rebook you." I was too nice and let a few patients take me for a ride, and by the time I decided I'd had enough it was pretty late to be starting from square one again with someone new. But even if you find yourself in that situation, if you drop a patient for a good reason then it's the school's responsibility to find you a new one. If they don't, they can't hold you back for not completing something they didn't give you the opportunity to do.

It's also a good idea to get rid of redundant cases once you have enough of something. Be careful with the perio patients. Recalls can really add up and take a lot of time, so once you have the patients to get you the credits you need, don't take any more.

And finally, if you get credit based on surfaces, look for cases where you can restore, for example, class 4's or class 6's on anterior teeth. At my school these can count for 5 surfaces each (MDBIL), while you'll spend a lot more time on a posterior class 2 and only get 2 or 3 surfaces. (MOD).

 

[Streetwolf]

But even if you find yourself in that situation, if you drop a patient for a good reason then it's the school's responsibility to find you a new one. If they don't, they can't hold you back for not completing something they didn't give you the opportunity to do.

What school do YOU go to? Can we trade?

 

[Edentulator]

UWO, in Canada. Is it true that at some schools you have to recruit your own patients? If that's the case, you have my sympathies!

Problem is, sometimes the school doesn't always HAVE suitable patients to assign...And even when they do, certain types of cubicles are really hard to get. I'm trying to graduate, but I just recently got ALL of my endos assigned to me, and waitlists are 15 people long. :S If I'm lucky I'll get one endo cubicle every two weeks at this rate.

 

[Streetwolf]

No I mean if the school doesn't give me enough operative and I don't do the minimum requirements, I have to reach that number before I start the requirement count for the following year.

We need 175 "operative points" for 3rd year and 200 for 4th year. If I end 3rd year with 150, I'll owe them 25 points during 4th year to complete the points from 3rd year.

Then the points will start counting toward the 200.

 

[gryffindor]

As the previous posters somewhat alluded to, figure out how exactly the rules work in the clinic and take advantage of any opportunity that benefits you. For example, students at my school used to turn their noses at doing recalls from a list of unassigned patients when they had an open appointment slots because recalls had a low point value. However, my friends and I welcomed those appointments because 1) low points are better than no points when you have an open appointment slot and 2) there was a good chance of diagnosing restorative needs on those patients since many of them hadn't been to the dentist in years. Since they were unassigned patients, whoever did the recall got to add the patient to their patient family and do the work. It was no secret that the unassigned recall list existed, but many students just couldn't be bothered to care. Another example would be that root canal patients were controlled and assigned by the endo department, but the grade on your transcript totally depended on which tooth number you got assigned. If you got 2 anteriors you got a C versus someone who got assigned 2 premolars got an A even though both students only treated 2 canals. Sounds unfair, but that's just the way the system was set up. If that A mattered to you, then with a little more digging you would learn that the loophole in the system was that if you found your own root canal patient, you got to treat that patient in addition to your two assigned patients thereby guaranteeing an A.

Basically you need to look out for yourself to stay on top of clinic and graduate on time because your school may or may not care. Just don't do anything to land yourself in one of those national cheating scandal headlines that occur too frequently in dental school...