first day of school! first day of third year!

usually people talk about making progress in leaps and bounds - i feel like i'm going to be taking leaps and bounds very soon (in the form of trying to somehow case manage by own patients), but progress...hahahahah! hopefully that will come. by some divine grace. or magic. or voodoo. or sheer willpower. any will do.

we've been given approximately 16 patients to manage as a starting point. i'm not mortified, nor am i scared to any extreme, but i am a little skeptical of being able to book these patients in a timely fashion - one that suits the availability of instructors, and also, my own timing with respect to my....emotional readiness, so to speak. should i work with all 16 patients simultaneously? that would be a booking nightmare; i wouldn't even be able to see each patient once a week; it would be every other week, at best. it's also amazing to me that people would be willing to sit through such long appointments. even before any treatment gets underway, a patient has generally been in the chair for about 6 hours. i don't think i could do that. if i were a patient, i would want an instantaneous treatment plan and all work finished in about two hour-long appointments. in that sense, i suppose i'm quite grateful for these patients that allow us to work in their teeth. you know who needs work? my dad. it's embarrassing, but my dad, i believe, has bad teeth. i'm not even sure, because he won't show me. all i know is that he's missing a front tooth, which i think he pulled himself because it was already loose, and then some travelling denturist made him a little flipper that he just slips on when he talks to clients (no clasps or anything! just a little tooth on a piece of pink acrylic! can you imagine!). he won't go to a dentist. he rinses with scope and thinks that suffices as good oral hygiene. he has toothaches once in a while (i suspect irreversible pulpitis), and he thinks that rinsing with saltwater will cure evvvverything. i implore him to do to the dentist, but he won't. (it doesn't hurt anymore; so i suspect the pulp is now necrotic). so, when the profs talk about those patients that never brush and neglect their teeth, and after a million years come into a dental office thinking that they'll just need a cleaning (only to realize that it's really too late for that and extensive work is needed) i start to think "how could anyone do that!" but then i am reminded that it's not so strange after all, i mean, i have one of those in my own family. aaaargh...i'm afraid to work on my dad when i graduate...who knows what's going on in there....