Tips for drilling/Indirect Vision?

[Nanimera]

It's been a semester and I still feel like I'm lousy with drilling using indirect vision. My dental school packs our schedule and don't give you extra time to practice other than the two sessions each week. They don't give you helpful tips on how to drill properly, and just say 'Use your mirror! It's that easy.' which isn't very helpful.

I have to do a class 3 on 12, for my Mid-Year practicals soon, but I still can't manage making the semi-circle with the bur and my mirror. The left-right movements keep getting messed up, and I'm not sure about my finger-rests either.

Are there any exercises I could do to help me deal with this issue?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Bifenthrin]

Practice. That's what your nights and weekends are for. If you're not spending at least 8 hours over your Saturday and Sunday in the lab practicing during D1 and D2, you're not doing it right.

 

[deleted659902]

Going slowly and not going full-speed with the handpiece helped for me. I think everyone eventually just gets it. There's no one right way to get there imo.

 

[Nanimera]

Practice. That's what your nights and weekends are for. If you're not spending at least 8 hours over your Saturday and Sunday in the lab practicing during D1 and D2, you're not doing it right.

If I could sit an entire weekend in the labs I would do it. But unfortunately, where I live, I can only be in the labs practicing on Mondays and Tuesdays. It's closed on weekends.

 

[Christinalorence]

You should practice more for making your works faster. Do exercises and complete your work

 

[Bifenthrin]

If I could sit an entire weekend in the labs I would do it. But unfortunately, where I live, I can only be in the labs practicing on Mondays and Tuesdays. It's closed on weekends.

If your dental school's preclinical lab is closed on weekends, that's a whole other problem. Class council needs to petition the school for weekend hours so people could go in to practice.

Where do you go?

 

[jmh018]

Obviously practice outside of clinic is a must. Even with that, it's easy to get turned around when using indirect vision. When that happens, take your foot off the pedal and figure out the movement you want and the location you're trying to get to. Do that movement several times with the handpiece off and then step on the pedal and drill it. I'm a third year and I would say pretty good in the clinic. Every once in awhile I still get turned around and need to do this. Don't worry, it comes quickly enough with practice.

 

[NMC2010]

First, make sure you have a good light - more important than loupes. Get the loupes for your neck though.

After that, don't be afraid to destroy a few plastic teeth while you're trying to figure out what to do. It's easy to want to try and do every prep perfect, but the simple truth is that your hands have no idea how to move like that yet. So you can spend a long time trying to get perfect results and be angry when you keep messing up, or you can just think before you start, "Ok. This plastic tooth will look horrible, but I'm going to move my hand/drill in every direction I can so I can learn what each motion feels like." Sounds simple enough, but I think that really helps you out.

Also, you guys definitely need to find a way to have your pre-clinic lab open on the weekends.