Dentistry

Last week I had a week of small animal dentistry. Well it actually ended up being only 4 days due to the 8 inches of snow and the subsequent snow day on Monday. That was an adventure because snow plows are scarce in Corvallis.  This was my first elective rotation and it was graded pass fail. The others actually have a letter grade associated with them.

Ultrasonic Scaler

Dogs and cats were brought in by students, technicians, and faculty. Each animal was examined and pre-anesthetic blood work completed usually the day before their scheduled procedure. Each animal was anesthetized for dental prophylactic cleaning, dental radiographs, and some procedures like tooth extractions.  Each day we had a different veterinary dentist available to help us. Students were divided into groups and would take turns doing the anesthesia or the dental procedures. I got a lot of extra anesthesia practice. I got to extract a few teeth (1 incisor, 1 premolar, and 1 canine root).

Before dental cleaning - DOG

After dental cleaning

My goal with taking this elective was to get more comfortable with extracting teeth and making flaps. I feel better about it but doing one flap hardly makes me confident. I feel better about shooting dental radiographs now. That took some getting used to but there was time to practice on this rotation and that was helpful. Overall, it was a good rotation but some improvements need to be made for the future. 

Tooth chart

Before dental cleaning - CAT

After dental cleaning and premolar extraction.

Now I'm relaxing at home in Utah with my family and dogs. It's been wonderful so far and I am so blessed to have vacation time corresponding with Christmas. I'm still waiting to receive my results for the NAVLE. Hopefully I'll find out next month sometime.