A great clinical experience I had was with a patient who has not seen a dentist in man years. The patient was a middle aged male who has lost multiple teeth to periodontal teeth. To replace these teeth he wore a partial removable denture. This patient also was a smoker and coffee consumer. Upon sitting in my chair and interviewing my patient, he expressed to me that he sleeps with his partial denture and did not remove it to clean it. The patient had a combination of supra- gingival and sub- gingival calculus deposits. When I asked him to remove his partial so I could properly clean it for him I immediately noticed he had denture stomatitis. I made the patient aware that this bacterial infection was occurring in his mouth. His treatment plan consisted of oral hygiene instructions as I expressed to the patient the importance of removing the denture at night and cleaning it with poly-dent. I also informed the patient of the harmful side effect tobacco smoking has on oral health as well as systemic health. We also went over the proper brushing a flossing technique. I decided to use a ultra- sonic and hand- scale instruments for debridement. Before leaving the clinic my professor and I provided him with a referral to see a general dentist.

BEFORE:

AFTER

Another great learning experience I had during my clinical hours was treating pediatric patients. This male patient presented with early childhood caries and an eruption cyst. I spoke to the care giver of this child about proper nutrition and instruction child and caregiver on how to brush and floss. This patient left with information about how to improve their over health and with a referral to a dentist.

 This female African American patient presented with severe gingival recession to the facial aspect of tooth numbers 24 and 25 with a class I mobility. Debridement on this patient was challenging but with time, patience, and my instrumentation skills I completed a full mouth debridement. This picture is after calculus debridement.