Dental Student Syndrome

Just a bandwidth raping update about what I’ve been up to.. 

You cannot imagine the torment I go through every night. The ticklish sensation in my throat, threatening an onset of vomit. Ugh. And the hacking coughs that keeps me up at night. The crude and disgusting clearing of throat sounds I make in class. I do it so much that I’m not even embarrassed anymore when the sounds I make are louder than the lecturer’s voice.

For 6 years, whenever I take out my Johnson and Johnson Oil Control Film, it is bound to be an object of fascination among the people around me. The boys in my form2 class had who-has-the-most-oil-on-his-face competition, the boys in my form5 class thought it was meant for eating, the classmates in A-levels took some and dabbed and rubbed, heck, even during the bus rides back from Putrajaya after our Merdeka marching rehearsals, my National Service trainers took a few and had who-has-the-most-oil-on-his-face competition among themselves as well.

Nothing’s change even if you’re in university.
L-r: Thong’s Facial Sebum, Sett’s Facial Sebum

Ee Chean has the cleaner face!

Dentistry course is starting to look more like…well dentistry. Even though I’ve completed my first year, it didn’t feel like a real dentistry course because we were learning the basic medical sciences and only grazing the ice-berg of the dental subjects.

As of late, we’ve been having more and more practical classes. Teaching us how to make things in the dental lab. However, it’s not things that a REAL dentist would do, just yet, as it would be the job of the dental technician. But we were just as excited about finally getting our hands dirtier.

This class was quite a while ago. We were taught how to construct dental plaster models from plaster of paris(but it is called dental plaster. So I think the properties are somewhat different).
Here we are transferring an impression from an alginate tray onto a lump of dental plaster.

Since we were noobs, we were given rubber moulds to practice on instead.

While waiting for my model to set…

ARGHH…

But nothing abit of superglue cannot fix. Very demoralising though.

However, it’s like when you give birth to a child with disabilities, you’d still love it with all your heart right?
At leat the rest of the model came out well.

The second dental technology lab class was held at the newly furnished dental technology lab! I was the FIRST student to walk into the lab. As we’ve not moved to the new campus yet, a dental technology lab has been set up in our temporary campus(which is made up of a long row of shop lots…. yes, the truth is finally out).

I’m still happy. 🙂 All these while we’ve been using multi disciplinary labs for our practical classes which is not as exciting as something to call your own.

Apparently, when the new lab is ready in the Semeling campus, there will be an LCD screen at every table and when the dental technologist shows the instructions, we no longer have to crowd around in front to have a closer look but just watch it from the screens in front of us. How cool is that?

Sigh, unfortunately it’ll be the juniors who will get that privilege.

A bur. I think. It is to trim the customised denture trays! So cool! It has a rotating conical shaped head with tiny blades sticking all over it. And you can adjust the speed and there’s a button on that thing to make the head spin clockwise or anticlockwise so that a dentist who is a left hander can handle the bur better.

I didn’t know my dean was waving at me!

The chairs are DAMNNNNNNN good. They fit your back perfectly.. or am I the only one who feels this?(must go on diet already). But it’s damn comfortable. Maybe they are putting importance in good posture already.

L-r: Poh Yee, Lie Yuen, Jamie, Wuan Phing

While waiting for the rest of the classmates, I just had some fun with the camera. Yes, that’s my dean. He knows that I’m the official photographer for the school of dentistry. hahahaha. So he doesn’t really mind.

The dental technologist showed us how to make the mixture of monomer and the polymer powder. The smell was very familiar. I then remembered that it was the exact same pungent vapours I had to bear with when I was working at Nail Artz, Sunway Pyramid back in 2002.

At that time, 3D nail arts were all the rage and my employers decided to go with the trend. They came back with a bottle of monomer(a very volatile liquid) and many colourful polymer powders. When you mix the two compounds together, you’d get a material that is easy to manipulate into whatever your heart desires. You want a heart shape? A flower? A teddybear? Sure!

So it’s the same thing they used in dentistry.. I see.

This explains why OPI(the Mercedes Benz of the nail polish industry) was originally a company which produced dental products. Enamel is the common factor. 🙂 What a strange coincidence that one of my passions is similiar to my career choice in so many ways.

When the mixture becomes dough-like, it is taken out of the small rubber cup and rolled into a small ball. Very much like playing plasticine.

Then the dough-like polymer is pressed onto the dental cast to make the customised tray!

I never knew that coating your hands with Vaseline can protect yourself from getting skin cancer. The monomer is a dangerous liquid.

Passing the hardening tray around.

Lined up in a pretty row, I HAD to take a picture.

There are no photos of me doing my work because everybody’s hands were coated with vaseline.

Not the perfect dental tray. Sad sad. 🙁

After learning about caries in class, I was a little paranoid because I thought I saw a cavity in my third molar. Maybe it’s just dental student syndrome. (You know like how medical students have medical student syndrome? They feel abit ill and then misintepret their symptoms and come to a conclusion that they’ve contracted a rare disease that they’ve just learnt in class.)

But it’s great having a housemate who is also a classmate.