Gold Crowns

We have been spending countless hours in our Dental Materials class learning about the properties of various alloys, the chemical make up of investment materials, and the differences between hygroscopic, thermal, and setting expansions. Quite boring actually, but all very related to the process of making gold crowns.

On Monday we all drove up to a local dental lab on the South Hill of Spokane to cast our very own gold crown. These are the basic steps...... I think it is a pretty cool process.

1. Impressions of the mouth are taken and casts are made.
2. We wax up a crown that has proper occlusal and proximal contacts i.e. the crown functions properly in the mouth and of course it has superb anatomy.
3. We then attach a wax sprue - it is a piece of wax (like a funnel) that attaches to our waxed up tooth.

4. We put our wax up w/ sprue into a metal ring and then fill the ring with an investment material that can withstand high temperatures and let it set.

- A cool side note here: The investment materials has been engineered to expand 1.7% during this process. This is important, because when the hot gold cools it will shrink 1.7% - leaving the crown at the exact proportions it should be. Pretty cool.

5. Bake the ring in an oven - This melts out all the wax, leaving a negative copy of our crown in the investment material with a tunnel (from the sprue) leading into the empty cavity.

6. Next you take the hot investment filled ring and place it on a massive centrifuge.

7. Place your $300 worth of gold penny weights (yes, we pay for this) down and torch them until they are super melted, shiny, and liquid.

8. When everything is ready to go, the stop pin on the centrifuge is released and everything spins super fast.

Notice in the picture above our instructor's hand carefully holding the gas hose away from the centrifuge. A good friend of mine accidentally let his hose drop into the centrifuge while it was spinning - a horrible noise and smell ensued...... The Dental Tech who was in the other room, without even seeing what happened, yelled "you drop the hose in the centrifuge?" as if she knew those sounds all to well ....... Ahhh it was a classic and priceless moment. My friend's face was bright red with embarrassment and I had a massive smile strung across my face while I soaked it all in. Finally, I'm not alone in the massive (but hilarious) mistake category - I'm referring to my infamous flame ball incident from fall quarter.


9. The centrifugal force of the centrifuge forces the hot liquid gold into the crown cavity. Let it cool and then do a lot of refining and polishing to make it pretty and viola.... you have a gold crown.

Here is most of the gang at the dental lab-


Camille sporting her sweet safety shades and getting ready to throw down her $300 dollars worth of gold.... All the while singing "Gold Digger " by Kanye........ okay that last part is false, but c'mon.... with those shades, its gotsta be true.

Picture of the final product - Kind of a blurry but you get the idea




My "good friend" moments before the incident...... :)


This year has produced some fantastically great times.

Doctor and Dentist Day

About a month ago it was Doctor and Dentist Day at Dylan's Preschool. I volunteered to come in and talk to the kids. It was a lot of fun. We talked about the difference between our anterior and posterior teeth and then separated my model teeth into the two different groups. After that, I let the kids "clean" my dentiform (my model mouth) with my waxing instruments. The kids really liked scraping the instruments across the roof of the mouth - lets be glad they are not our hygienists. The kids also took turns listening to my heartbeat with the stethoscope. I think they enjoyed it about as much as 4-yr-olds are capable of enjoying teeth.

Dylan REALLY wanted me to show the kids how I "cut" the teeth! He was referring to the night I was using my Hacksaw to cut my models up into dies - I think it kinda freaked him out.









Also - Intro to Clinical Medicine is over! Hallelujah!

We did our final physical exams on Wednesday and It feels great to have this class over. I learned a lot in ICM, but that class added so much stress to my school year, just by the fact of it being every single Wednesday for nearly 3 hours - both semesters. The sad thing about ICM is that it is a Pass/Fail course and almost all our other classes were graded. This is sad because I think ICM offered more practical and applicable teachings than a lot of our basic science classes. I would get so stressed out about my graded classes that ICM just seemed to be in the way - but I think I will hold onto my lessons learned in ICM a lot longer than I will the membrane potential of a cell or what microbe causes Valley Fever. None the less - I'm so happy I have Wednesdays off for the next 6 weeks.

Our Lab

Here is our lab! My desk is the second from the back on the right. This is where the infamous flame thrower incident took place........ oh wait.... nevermind.... .forget you heard that.

Our awesome Tech Guy Lonny put this picture together - Thanks Lonny!

You need to click on the picture and blow it up if you want to see everything.



More pics from Lonny at:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Spokane-WA/RIDE-SPOKANE/179811627943?ref=ts

On a Side Note, I have been getting consistent tension headaches this quarter. I stumbled across this picture that Lonny took and I'm starting to understand why...... Look at this great posture! I'm going to need to work on that.

Good Times In The Dental Lab

We spend 2 whole days each week in the dental lab. It is stressful at times, but so far it has just been a lot of fun. Lately we have been working on making molds of our own mouths.

In order to do this you first have to make an impression of your mouth. I'm pretty sure everyone has had this done at one point or another in their life - You know the stuff.... Kinda taste like mint, runs into your throat and makes you feel like your going to gag, and feels like every single one of your teeth are going to snap off when the dentist attempts to take it out (especially when a dental student is attempting this for the first time). After you get the impression of your mouth, you then pour Gypsum (like a stone/Plaster of Paris) into that impression and let it set. This stone becomes the replica of your mouth. You then have to go through a series of steps to align the maxillary and mandibular cast into the proper orientation within the articulator. It is pretty cool to see the quiddities of our individual mouths.

Some of the students attempted to take their own impressions which led to a sequence of pretty hilarious events.

Liza waiting for her impression to set

Joanna with a mouthful of Alginate

So funny - Way to go Kaitlin!

Yours truly -


Camille studying the cast.

Alex - "The Lab Man" - trying to bust a flame with the blow torch. I haven't said much about Alex on this blog. He knows his way around the lab and he knows a lot of tricks to help speed up the process. Good guy to have on your side. Alex has gotten me out of A LOT of jams.... and I mean A LOT of jams.
Steven and his teeth... x2


Dr. Ashlock and Liza



This is Eric....... The picture says the rest.
"Dr. Swanson" aka Bryan -
The Big-Wig Dr. McCoy helping Kaitlin determine her Angle of Eminentia

I'm glad I took the time to get some pictures. It would be a shame to go through this year without having something to help us remember the good times.

Brad

Soccer

My 4-year-old son Dylan started soccer this week and guess who his coach is? That's right.... this guy! I have always thought I would coach my kids teams but last year I was too scared and this year I decided I needed to buck up and be a man. So despite my busy school schedule, Rendy being pregnant, and our tyrant of a daughter Scarlett, I decided to jump in and give this coaching thing a try.

Today was our first game and we had a blast (even though we got destroyed).

Highlight from the game is below(remember these are 4 to 6 yr olds):

Trash Talking - apparently kids at this age already know how to trash talk.... but it is pretty innocent and really funny. We (the other coach and myself) tried to discourage this, but it kept happening and I kept laughing.

Other team: "Ya! we have 4 points and you have none!" after scoring there 4th goal in a row.
Our player "I'm going to pound that kid in the face" while pounding his right fist into his left palm with a cartoonish scowl spread across his face ...... Our player paid him back by scoring a few goals of his own.

Our boys decided that we should be called the Blue Stars. Intimidating, right?



Other quotes:
"Coach, those kids aren't letting me kick the ball," pointing to the opposite team.
"Why is that team is sooooo good?"
"Why is that kid so big?" ..... He was freakishly tall for a 6-yr-old.

Kids.... you gotta love 'em.

That's Dylan in the Nikes trying to get into the pack.

Dental school can make you feel like you don't have time to do anything other than study, sit on the couch (unwinding), sleep, and eat. But I couldn't be happier that I made the decision to coach. Dental school is important, but participating in life as it happens is more important.

Lessons Learned in Professionalism

I'm learning that there is more to Dental school than doing book and lab work. Turns out, at least for me, it is also an opportunity to learn how to be a professional. Unfortunately, I am the student that has caused the most ripples this year in our program. I assure you that I didn't plan for it to be this way. I have learned a lot about myself and the things I need to change in the next 4 years of school to hone my professionalism.

After a recent incident, the Director pulled me into his office for a word (only like the 3rd time this has happened this year :). Our Director is great and a great teacher. He helped me understand the things I did wrong. He didn't tell me or talk at me about what I did wrong. We sat down and had a discussion about the situation and he allowed me the opportunity to figure out on my own what I had done wrong, why it was wrong, and what I should change in the future. He even admitted one of his own mistakes in professionalism he had made as a dental student - something that significantly helped me feel like I wasn't alone in my situation.

All of my problems have arisen during the absolutely most stressful times of dental school. The points where I have felt like I was about to break or I have felt defeated and disgruntled. It was pointed out to me that most of us don't have trouble with professionalism when things are going good, but when we are up against the wall. It is when we are against the wall that our actions matter most and define our professionalism. Once I start working with patients, assistants, and colleagues, the actions taken while in these stressful situations will carry much more potent consequences.

Just add it to the list of things I need to learn before leaving Dental School.