For the whole of the second semester since simulation clinic resumed, I had been struggling with meeting the competencies required. I kept on damaging the adjacent teeth with my burs, I had so many unsealed margins, overhangs and poor contacts, and I had been receiving a barrage of ‘borderline’ and ‘unsatisfactory’ grades overall.
I reached out for help, asking my batch mates what they do, looked to seniors in church and in my buddy group for help and watched many Youtube videos (which were so well done, thank you Stevenson dental!). However, I just could not get my composite resins without porosities and my amalgams carved nicely.
But I never felt crushed or defeated. Yes, it came with much frustration and the hope of ever being able to do it correctly seemed to diminish with each session, but it didn’t consume me, and I only have God to thank.
Truly, knowing how much God loves me in spite of my lack of manual dexterity reminds me that life is so much greater than this dental course, that even if I were to repeat this year, or lose my opportunity to finish this 5 year course and become a dentist, I know that it will not be the end of my life, because God says, “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)
Knowing that God holds me secure and is my place of unshakable refuge has helped me stand strong with my gloved hands and masked face as my tutor circles the unsatisfactory grade for the 5th time, as Dr. Poppy comes over to give me the update that I will be going for remedial sessions, and as I look at the clock when time is up and I am nowhere near complete. God’s love gives me the courage and resilience to persevere.
The 9th of November 2020, Monday, was the beginning of our final week of formative simulated clinic sessions, meaning that for the subsequent weeks, all sessions would contribute to our year end grade. We were tasked with restoring a mesio-occlusal cavity and a fractured mesiolingual cusp on the 46 with a pinned amalgam. On top of that, Mondays were with Dr. Lerche, a tutor and dentist who had been working with the dental school for a long time, one whose standards were high and who always gave rational explanations for the grade he gave us.
Once again, I was determined to do my very best. I managed to create a good mesial slot with a proximal box WITHOUT damaging the adjacent tooth and did the other steps pretty efficiently. I did have some trouble putting on my matrix band and Dr. Lerche swooped in to help and demonstrated how to do it quickly. Carving the amalgam went by quickly and before I knew it, 2 hours were up and I was calling Dr. Lerche over, feeling pleased with my final product.
Dr. Lerche too found that it was well restored, and areas that were lacking were minor (such as anatomical replication because it would eventually change to suit the patient’s opposing teeth). As a result, he gave me a ‘satisfactory’ grade. I paused for a moment, because I was genuinely surprised, and what followed were uncontrollable tears welling up.
Tears of joy are not something that I am familiar with, and in all instances in my life so far, the cause of such tears are immense gratitude to God. He had seen me through a semester of failure. And now, I had caught a tiny glimpse of the light at the end of a dark, frustrating tunnel.
I had received ‘satisfactory’ grades from my other tutors that week as well. My group always jokes that we should become “mandibular teeth specialist” because we only seem to do well on lower teeth where we don’t need to use the dental mirror as much, but even for the upper teeth this week, I was able to do a reasonable job of restoring them.
The tunnel is far from over, and I think it really only ends when I retire from dental work, but I am thankful to God for getting past the hurdle of the basics. It has been incredibly humbling and also immensely enjoyable. Being able to do something so practical and hands-on is really a blessing that I cannot ever thank God enough for. Beyond dentistry, I have also been blessed in more ways than I can count by being here in Adelaide, but as usual, that’s a story for another time 🙂
Do you even dentist? 