Very Dental Student: Surviving Second Year with Mohamed Abo-Basha

[00:00:00] This is a production of The Very Dental Podcast Network.

[00:00:07] It's time for a very dental podcast just for students and new dentists. Welcome to the

[00:00:15] very dental student podcast, and now here's your host, Mohammed Abubasha. Hello everybody,

[00:00:21] welcome to another episode of The Very Dental Student Podcast. I'm your host, Mohammed Abubasha.

[00:00:26] Today I'm coming at you guys solo. We're just doing a little bit of a check-in today.

[00:00:31] I wanted to update you guys on how dental school is going for me, so I believe the last time

[00:00:39] I did one of these was in the fall of my D2 year, so not too long ago, just like last semester.

[00:00:47] But yeah, so now it's towards the end of spring D2. So for any dentists out there that remember,

[00:00:57] almost done with the D2 year. So that's something I really am looking forward to being just over

[00:01:05] with this year because man, like for any first years out there or pre-dense,

[00:01:12] it's as bad as everybody makes it sound like it is that bad, to be honest, because it's just so

[00:01:18] busy, just so much stuff, endless amount of work that you have to do. We got back from spring

[00:01:26] break and there was like three tests within the next week that we had to handle just directly after

[00:01:33] spring break. So it's been a year for sure, definitely very ready to be over with it.

[00:01:43] So right now classes that I'm in, I'm in RPD for partials. We already finished complete

[00:01:52] dentures. Now we're learning partials all about like drawing out, designing and drawing out

[00:02:00] like the different framework designs and stuff. That class isn't too bad, and then we have

[00:02:07] on Tuesday we have peeds which honestly, peeds has been kind of rough. It's one of those classes

[00:02:16] where it shouldn't really be that hard but for some reason is just because of how they run the course

[00:02:24] which I mean there's tons of classes like that in dental school, but peeds is definitely one of the

[00:02:30] big pain points this semester. What's interesting about that class is that the lab portion they seem

[00:02:38] to be testing us more on speed than like accuracy. So what we do when we go to lab is like they're like

[00:02:48] okay you guys have two hours prep four teeth and fill all four teeth in those two hours which I

[00:02:56] mean it's definitely very doable, but it's also like not what we're used to in dental school. We're

[00:03:03] used to the faculty being like oh take your time. If you don't finish just finish after class

[00:03:11] and people taking a lot of time on their preps and stuff, but in this class it's like no you

[00:03:17] actually like the main thing that we're being tested on the speed which makes makes sense. The

[00:03:23] way they make it sound is like kids aren't going to sit there in the chair and be compliant for

[00:03:28] very long, so when you have them in the chair you got to go fast which makes perfect sense to me.

[00:03:32] So that's one pain point for sure in this semester. Then we have oral path on Tuesday afternoons,

[00:03:40] oral paths probably by far the hardest class that we've taken in all of dental school. I don't think

[00:03:46] that there's any class that even comes close. It's just so much stuff that you have to know and

[00:03:52] you just have to memorize literally everything in the whole like everything that they go over in

[00:03:56] the slides, you just have to memorize all of it which I don't know like for me that's

[00:04:02] the most difficult thing to do. Like if you just teach me something and you expect me to be

[00:04:07] able to answer questions about that, I can do that easily but if you're expecting me to memorize

[00:04:14] 20 chapters for a test that's when it gets really hard which I think our comprehensive final is

[00:04:20] going to be a monster for sure in that class. Then we have oral surgery, the first the introduction

[00:04:28] to oral surgery. That class is not too bad. They're just teaching us the basics of oral surgery.

[00:04:35] This is what this instrument does. You use this force up for this tooth, that kind of stuff. It's

[00:04:42] not too bad. There's some info in there that's like how to take them out of med history,

[00:04:50] different medications that we need to be aware of all that kind of stuff which is

[00:04:54] kind of a rehashing them some other classes that we've had so yeah that class isn't too bad at all.

[00:05:01] And then on Wednesdays we have perio. Perio is not too bad at all either. It's just a quick one

[00:05:08] credit course and I mean I think it's the same textbook they use for the hygiene course

[00:05:14] because a lot of the questions that we get asked sometimes are like

[00:05:19] they're written as if they're being asked to a hygiene student, not a dental student.

[00:05:27] It's weird. That class I feel like should have been a D1 class and even the faculty says so he's

[00:05:34] trying to get it put into the D1 curriculum. That one's not a big deal at all.

[00:05:40] Then on Thursdays we're doing endo. Endo has been one of those classes where

[00:05:47] it's either really fun for you or it's really kind of difficult for you.

[00:05:54] I like endo, I don't think that the way we're doing projects is going to make

[00:06:03] me any more confident when I start doing endo and clinic if that makes sense.

[00:06:10] I feel like I need to go into clinic and do a few on an actual live patient before I can say that

[00:06:17] I have any type of skills in endo because I feel like the way we're doing it now is like

[00:06:21] we're mounting it in a little tube and literally holding in our hands

[00:06:26] and doing the access and doing the instrumentation and everything with it like that so

[00:06:31] I don't feel like it could be an accurate presentation of our endo skills.

[00:06:36] And I mean everybody I've ever heard talk about getting good at endo, it's all about reps,

[00:06:40] repetitions and that's something we definitely don't have yet.

[00:06:45] The course itself, it's been a pretty interesting course.

[00:06:50] I liked the lab project so hopefully that's something that I continue to enjoy and get better at

[00:06:57] throughout my dental school journey and afterwards. I definitely think that

[00:07:03] who has it? I had Dr. Khaled Azubi on the podcast a couple weeks ago

[00:07:09] and his little piece of advice was get good at endo

[00:07:14] and I think that resonated with me a lot. I think I definitely want to be doing the majority

[00:07:21] of my endo in-house and maybe just referring out like molar retreats or something. I think that

[00:07:27] would be a good place to aim for but we'll see how everything goes for sure.

[00:07:36] Yeah, and then after endo we have path again on Thursdays as well.

[00:07:42] One annoying thing about path is that we have a quiz every session so we have a quiz on Tuesday

[00:07:49] and Thursday and it's about the stuff we haven't covered yet in class.

[00:07:56] One of the things that makes it so hard is you just have to be on top of that class.

[00:08:02] You don't get a single day off from that class because we have that class on Tuesday

[00:08:06] and then on Wednesday you have to study the upcoming chapter because on Thursday you have a quiz

[00:08:12] and so on. We have path again on Thursdays. Every other week we have an oral radiology

[00:08:19] class where we just go in and take a quiz and then review the quiz.

[00:08:26] Because we've already covered all the content in terms of oral radiology so we're just

[00:08:33] keeping it fresh, taking quizzes every other week to make sure we still remember everything

[00:08:39] and then Friday we have fixed. Fixed is this semester we focused on anterior crowns.

[00:08:48] I mean we did a crown prep on number eight and number nine so I guess we didn't do one on a lateral

[00:08:55] or on a canine which I've heard that the canine is the really more difficult one to prep but

[00:09:05] I haven't gotten to test that. Test out that statement because we haven't done one on the canine yet

[00:09:11] but we have done or we've done a few on maxillary central insiders. We haven't done any on mandibular

[00:09:21] mandibular anterior teeth at all so that's that's kind of where we're at now we've done yeah but we've

[00:09:28] done a few on some maxillary centrals and then we were also doing bridges in fixed two

[00:09:35] so fixed one was all about just single unit posterior compress and then fixed two is single unit

[00:09:42] anterior and then bridges and then the bridge that we did was three to five so no maxillary

[00:09:51] a maxillary bridge from two to three to five so those that class has been I mean pretty straightforward

[00:09:58] we already knew how to prep teeth like we've been doing it for a semester so we already know

[00:10:05] like which birds to use. A lot of us have some beef with the type of don't they gave us we feel like

[00:10:15] the type of don't teeth we have are like it's not ideal for the parameters that they're

[00:10:22] that they're asking us to do so like based on the reduction and everything that we're supposed to have

[00:10:29] if we actually do that then the type of don't tooth ends up being super tiny like super thin when

[00:10:35] you're done with it um like facial wing willy there's barely any tooth left if if you do one and a

[00:10:43] half millimeters of facial and one and a half millimeters of wing will it's like the tooth is

[00:10:48] almost gone by the time you do that so that's one point of frustration that that I guess a lot of

[00:10:55] us have had um but I mean it's I mean I think it's been manageable um and then we're also apparently

[00:11:03] we're gonna learn some veneer preps we did some some anterior waxing um and then I think we're

[00:11:10] gonna use that to make a putty guide and then make some veneer preps of 100% sure actually but

[00:11:18] I think that's what we're gonna do so here pretty soon and that that should be an exciting project I

[00:11:22] guess it's gonna be it's gonna be like a an anterior six teeth like uh canine an ancanine just veneer

[00:11:31] preps case so that should be there should be interesting should should be something fun

[00:11:37] I know some previous classes didn't get the chance to do veneer preps in um in the preclinic at all

[00:11:44] so that'll be just interesting to get exposed to for sure yeah that's all that I had of when it comes

[00:11:51] to like the classes that I'm in um I've definitely been something that's been really like the highlight

[00:12:01] of the semester is that we've been in clinic um we've had two sessions a week last semester we

[00:12:08] had two sessions a week as well we were also in clinic we were doing mostly like workups of

[00:12:12] profis last semester and uh I mean some people were doing SRPs as well and this semester we're doing

[00:12:20] the same thing workups profis SRPs but we're also doing operative this semester and

[00:12:28] there's I mean in general we're all we're already just blessed at our school to get into clinic

[00:12:35] early during second year because the majority of schools across the country they get in clinic

[00:12:43] third year at least that's my understanding I could I could be wrong but that's my understanding

[00:12:47] based on what I hear um people people that went to different dental schools that's what they've

[00:12:53] told me is that they don't really get into clinic at all until third year unless they were just like

[00:12:59] assisting or something during their first two years but it's nice that we've been able to do

[00:13:04] workups on our own patients do our own cleanings and a few of us have started doing operative I

[00:13:12] definitely wouldn't say that everybody in my class has done operative on a patient but I mean

[00:13:19] I would say like probably half have done at least a couple operative on a patient um so probably

[00:13:27] it could even be a little bit more than half for sure so it's all about the patients that you have

[00:13:32] I mean that's one that's one really frustrating thing about dental school in general is like

[00:13:39] you really don't have control on like what kind of patients you get like you could

[00:13:47] like I for example I only have two patients that have done workups on but those two patients

[00:13:55] that I did workups on I was able to treat and plan like 10 fillings on so

[00:14:01] I've gotten to do a ton of fillings relatively compared to all my classmates um because I just

[00:14:09] I just got lucky with those patients but then some people have gotten to do a lot more workups

[00:14:15] and more profuses but then they're doing less operative procedures and the way that they grade us in

[00:14:24] clinic is we get we have a course for each department so we have a course for oral diagnosis

[00:14:34] and are graded in that class it's basically dependent on how many workups we do

[00:14:38] so in that class since I've only done two workups I'm actually not going to do very well in that class

[00:14:43] um I guess some people have done like five or six workups and I've done two

[00:14:49] so I'm not going to do very well in that class but then when it comes to operative in perio

[00:14:54] I've done more than enough to get an A in that class so but some people are like struggling with

[00:15:00] operative and they're they are going to get a really good grade in oral diagnosis it's just an

[00:15:06] interesting kind of I don't know it's just like you would you get what you get and you kind of

[00:15:12] just have to make the best out of it um but yeah that's uh that's clinic I do want to talk a little

[00:15:18] bit about like my experience specifically in operative so my first few were just those little

[00:15:25] occlusal fillings and those were all pretty straightforward um I have done a couple class

[00:15:33] twos and uh that one thing I thought was really interesting is like how different um certain things

[00:15:43] are than how we were taught in pre clinic so the class twos I did were like one of them was just

[00:15:50] a slot prep which we didn't do a lot in pre clinic I think we did it like once or twice we learned

[00:15:56] how to do a slot prep in pre clinic um I mean it's pretty simple um but I didn't I guess I didn't

[00:16:04] realize that like oh the majority of class twos that I'm gonna do in pre clinic will probably be

[00:16:09] slot perps um if there's nothing if there's nothing making you think that the occlusal surfaces

[00:16:16] and well then you'll probably just do a slot prep so that's just like one of those things that

[00:16:21] I guess you never think about and then the other thing is like just just the whole thing where we

[00:16:30] got taught ideal preps but then in actual clinic you just you just prep out the carries wherever

[00:16:37] they may be so that was something that like I had not until point where I was I felt very confident

[00:16:44] operative wise um in the pre clinic but then in the actual clinic it just takes a little bit more

[00:16:49] it just takes a little bit more thinking beforehand and that's definitely once you get some reps in

[00:16:56] I definitely think it's gonna be more straightforward like you're just gonna go in look at the bite

[00:17:02] wing look at the treatment plan be like okay this is where I'm gonna start and this and then

[00:17:06] that'll just kind of guide you through but I do think it's just been a little bit of an

[00:17:13] interesting adjustment um one case that I had on some I had some anterior teeth some class 3s

[00:17:20] and that was really interesting because went I mean in the pre clinic all the time when we did a

[00:17:27] class 3 we would do we would access it from the lingua but for this patient because the

[00:17:36] they already had a buildup on that tooth um the tooth didn't have they didn't have a contact

[00:17:41] previously so they built up the distal to put the tooth in contact it was number 7 so that tooth

[00:17:50] on the on the genoval the genoval cave surface margin or the genoval the genoval area of that buildup

[00:17:59] um there was it was leaking but it was on the facial so I had to access the tooth from the facial

[00:18:06] for a class 3 and it like it went sub-genoval so it was like it was not a prep that I had done at all

[00:18:15] in class um like in class we just go barely under the contact point do a nice little you know

[00:18:24] one one and a half millimeter by one millimeter type like or two millimeter by one millimeter

[00:18:30] class 3 little lesion it would always be like the same shape just barely under the contact point um but

[00:18:39] now this this this one was like it didn't even include the contact and it was sub-genoval

[00:18:48] and we couldn't get a rubber dam on because patient had ortho brackets so I had to like pack cord

[00:18:54] which was the first time me doing that so there's just a whole lot of um different variables kind

[00:19:00] of being thrown at you so that all this to say is that I think it's really it's really been fun

[00:19:06] getting into the clinic getting getting exposed to things that you definitely weren't exposed to

[00:19:12] in the pre clinic and I mean I've only done like nine fillings I think so far um so yeah still have

[00:19:22] plenty plenty more fillings um to do before I meet my graduation requirements which I think is

[00:19:27] awesome because I'll be able to see see a lot more and and just learn um yeah the summer I think

[00:19:34] is when we start doing um fixed on patients and I think also endo and extractions and I think we're

[00:19:45] also doing removable so we'll be we'll basically be doing everything in come summer um if not

[00:19:51] if not the summer then definitely the fall will be doing I think by the fall we'll all be doing

[00:19:57] pretty much everything um but it's again it's all about the patients that you have

[00:20:02] but we're gonna go from two two clinic sessions a week to five uh for third year so five clinic

[00:20:09] sessions a week we should be able to get a lot of uh hopefully a lot of patients worked up and in our

[00:20:17] in our patient pool our patient family and yeah hopefully we'll be able to get rocking and rolling

[00:20:24] with that um it is all a look of the draw like I know some people who are a year ahead of me

[00:20:30] who still haven't gotten to do a crown prep so but then again some third years did a crown

[00:20:37] prep like in the summer they did their first one in the summer so it's it is a lot about how

[00:20:44] lucky you get with patients but I don't know hopefully I'll be able to find some um personal

[00:20:49] patients to bring into the school that needs some dentistry that's that's definitely my

[00:20:54] my strategies can be try to find personal patients and not depend on the

[00:20:59] not depend on the university to to give them to me I mean I'll definitely be really happy if

[00:21:05] the university does give me some some good patients that need a lot of work but I'm gonna try my best

[00:21:11] to to kind of handle that myself and make sure that I'm busy regardless yeah I think that's enough

[00:21:19] in terms of where I'm at in dental school um yeah one thing just kind of other stuff that's been

[00:21:27] going on we got to not to meet iq uh dr david rice from ignite dds he came in the little um

[00:21:36] social like little happy hour thing um for uh set the dental school um well it was it wasn't at

[00:21:43] the dental school but it was open for all uh the dental students and that was pretty pretty interesting

[00:21:50] if uh if you guys haven't heard of ignite dds i'm sure you have because he's all over social media but

[00:21:56] if you haven't heard about i heard of that go ahead and give that a follow on instagram specifically

[00:22:00] i'm sure he's on other platforms but i don't have tiktok or anything so probably on instagram

[00:22:05] would be the best place he works a lot with dental students um i don't know exactly like

[00:22:13] what he does in terms of like what he offers to dental students i'm i'm planning to have him on

[00:22:19] the show here pretty soon and i'll talk to you guys a little bit more about what kind of what kind of

[00:22:25] stuff he does with dental students because i i see that he's always kind of talking to dental students

[00:22:31] the whole ignite dds thing is i feel like targeted towards dental students um so that's an

[00:22:36] interesting follow go ahead and give him a follow and we'll get him on the show for sure um to talk

[00:22:41] to talk about that stuff and then another thing another thing i wanted to shout out dr jazgulati

[00:22:48] from the protrusive dental podcast i had him on my show we talked about occlusion um doctor

[00:22:55] mead alan has had him on his segment um they both kind of interview each other and um he's

[00:23:04] honestly a really good follow if uh if any of you guys aren't following the protrusive dental podcast

[00:23:11] i think i would highly recommend that um he's started a new kind of a new platform

[00:23:18] that's kind of kind of similar to dental town um if you will it's called what is it called let me

[00:23:23] pull it up on my phone but it's it's like basically i think it's just protrusive so the protrusive

[00:23:31] app so you can just look up protrusive in the app store and uh and then just make an account um they

[00:23:39] like verify you they're they verify that you're actually a dental person and then it's basically like

[00:23:46] facebook but it's uh a separate app so you can post um on their post clinical cases

[00:23:54] post pictures whatever and then people will comment and there's a little there's a little chat

[00:23:59] with all the members on there um i think that's pretty cool like i've i've enjoyed it a lot um

[00:24:06] some of the clinical cases that they post on there i mean me as a dental student i can understand

[00:24:11] everything they're saying and it gives me a lot of um just insight on the decision making trees that

[00:24:20] people people go through where people get hung up on certain cases um i would i would recommend it

[00:24:26] for sure and one thing that he's done that i wanted to kind of kind of shout out on the podcast is

[00:24:32] that he's made there is there is a portion of the app that's a paid um kind of service where they

[00:24:41] have like they call it the protrusive vault and that's where they have like a bunch of little

[00:24:46] PDFs of like different workflows and different like clinical tips and tricks and that's usually a

[00:24:52] paid space but if you're a student and you can prove that you're a student by like i don't know

[00:24:57] what their process is proving that you're a student but i would have imagined like a school idea type

[00:25:02] thing really something like that so if you're a student they'll give you access to that for free

[00:25:07] and they also have they they're gonna start releasing episodes specifically for students

[00:25:15] where kind of like how i'm the very dental student he they have like a protrusive student who

[00:25:21] just started with them and they're going to be the protrusive student Erica she's going to be asking

[00:25:28] um doctor Guilotti question different questions and stuff as it comes to like i guess why she's

[00:25:35] experiencing in clinic so like the first episode they did was like adhesives um just and i thought

[00:25:43] that was a pretty good episode just a refresher it's it's a lot of the stuff you learned

[00:25:46] and operative but if you maybe weren't paying attention like the majority of people probably

[00:25:53] it's a good refresher so yeah i'm just just go ahead and give a protrusive the app and the podcast

[00:26:00] go ahead and give that um a good look into i would recommend it for sure um don't have too many

[00:26:08] too many people from the u.s on the app yet so um i think it would be i don't think it would be an

[00:26:15] interesting thing to go ahead and build up that that community um because i do think it's been

[00:26:21] pretty useful for sure and while i'm shouting out different platforms i would also like to shout out

[00:26:27] the the very dental facebook group and the very clinical facebook group those are also both

[00:26:32] really amazing places to be able to just ask questions um everybody in those facebook groups are

[00:26:40] is really chill um yeah they they answer questions they answer them honestly they are not picky if

[00:26:49] you're a dental student and you're and you're asking a question that might be stupid

[00:26:55] that nobody's gonna like make fun of you or anything for the questions you're asking it's a really

[00:26:59] great space so also go ahead and join the very dental facebook group and the very clinical facebook

[00:27:06] group um i know the very dental facebook group there's some passwords um that Alan mentions on all

[00:27:12] his all of his episodes usually um i imagine they'll probably be in the show notes so just use one

[00:27:17] of those passwords and you'll be able to get in um yeah that's uh there's pretty much all i have for

[00:27:24] you guys this time it's a little bit of a shorter episode but beyond beyond the lookout for some

[00:27:31] incoming interviews um some incoming episodes and i know Alan got to record quite a bit for

[00:27:37] at the Chicago midwinter and he's been releasing some of those episodes um i've enjoyed those

[00:27:42] episodes a lot so please make sure you guys are listening to all of Alan's episodes and also

[00:27:47] listening to any very clinical episodes that come out um and yep we'll catch you guys next time