Dear Mock Board Patient... I'm Happy to Treat You?

Yesterday afternoon in clinic I saw my mock board patient. This should be a good thing right? See your mock board right before the test, get a feel for their anatomy, calculus, etc... sounds great - I know, but boy was I wrong! Let me start out by stating that I am very grateful I have a mock board patient that is reliable...I am just not so thrilled about his tenacious calculus. :) Before yesterday, I never truly understood the term "tenacious calculus"... but, don't you worry - yesterday I sure learned QUICK. My patient had the most tenacious calculus I have EVER felt. I swear I could have scaled ONE tooth for an hour at a time and still would have missed spots - no kidding! I have never been so discouraged before... I could feel the calculus but NO MATTER what instrument, lateral pressure, chair position I used it just was not givin' in! I finally had to cut my losses and call it a day because I felt like I wasn't making ANY improvements. On top of the evil embedded calculus, my patient's gums bled like there was NO tomorrow - I couldn't catch a break. After instrumenting ONE surface of a tooth I'd have to hold a 2x2 on the gums for a minute just to get the bleeding under control. So, to make a long story short, I left feeling discouraged about taking my first mock board. Even though I felt discouraged about my efforts yesterday, I am grateful for the great learning opportunities it presented. I learned a lot of new "tricks" to help defeat evil tenacious calculus so I am excited to bust out these new approaches for mock boards and see what kind of results I get. WISH ME LUCK -- SERIOUSLY! ;)