Tuesday, July 10, 2012
wow so happy hehe! something totally unexpected happened... I PASSED CROWN COMPETENCY!! (((: omgg so happy srsly!! :D ahhhhh!! (((: haha i'm now allowed to make crowns for my patients in the clinic! :D not that i have any patients who need crowns at the moment la oops. but still! so elated! (: the depressing cycle of equilibration and re-equilibration ends here for now! (: for now only haha, cos still need to equilibrate for bridge course and bridge competency next time. but omg yes so happy! (:
and i managed to meet the deadline for completing last term's fixed prostho work on endodontically treated teeth and retainers for dentures (((: omg. no more surveyed crowns for a long long time! (i hope..) haha xD just managed to finish it today whew, cutting it real close, cos if we don't finish by the last FP lesson this week then we'll receive a fail grade for that course apparently. heng ah! :D
now i can move on to bridges.. haha already lagging behind cos most of the class alr started on bridges like one or two session earlier. but it's ok! (: i'll just press on and perservere (:
some pictures (:
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| close up view of my wax up of surveyed PFM crown on #45. (: distal guide plane is there already, but the mesial rest seat wasn't incorporated yet haha... i was just focusing on getting the tooth morphology correct (: the lighting isn't very good but i assure you the occlusal morpho is pretty accurate and realistic (: grooves and cusp tips and buccal slopes and marginal ridges yada yada are all in the right position (: |
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| buccal view (: so shiny omg! (: feel so proud of myself (: |
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| the empty sockets look really morbid here hahaha xD |
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| on the right, is the crown prep that i cut for this round of competency! (: and that's my provi (temporary crown) on the left haha (: i'm showing you guys the more polished surface of my provi haha, the other surface is a bit rough cos i patched up some resin in the last 3 min of the test and didn't have time to polish. but the morpho was not bad huh :p the prep is not one of my nicest preps as i mentioned before, but i couldn't find the very first prep i cut for the first crown test (which was my nicest looking prep ever, imo) |
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| my nicest looking cast so far!! :D haha all nicely trimmed and smoothened and polished with sandpaper (: this was for last term's FP module on surveyed crowns haha, so there are all the survey lines on the teeth D: but still doesn't look too bad la, cos my survey lines are pretty neat too yay (: |
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lol, i think that i'm learning to take more pride in my work these days (: the nicole in yr 1 would not have given two hoots about sandpaper-ing a stone cast to beautify it for goodness sake. but now, i'm learning more about what's expected of me, and about impression management... and it's true that showing up shoddy work is pointless when you could just put in a bit more effort and make it look nicer a bit, and then the instructors wouldn't have such a poor impression on you... to most people, appearance IS everything, and if you can make something look nice and presentable then it tends to reflect better on you i guess, even if your work might not really be so ideal or accurate. unfair, and slightly lame (in my opinion) but true. and since we're all a part of society, we have to conform to society's ideals, much as we try to be true to ourselves and try not care excessively about what others think... lol. look how much dentistry has changed me haha....
i pray that i will not get too sucked into the whole aesthetics shebang though... it's really too lame. i mean ok, beautifying stone casts and all are still pointless in my opinion cos the stone cast itself is just meant to be used for labwork purposes, not like we're going to give the cast to the patient to keep or sth -.- but i will still beautify it la, for the sake of surviving dental sch... it's true lor, if the cast is not pretty, they won't sign it anyway, and then, i won't be able to pass my cases, and THEN, i won't be able to graduate in time. ugh. but human aesthetics is just too subjective a field for me, and i REFUSE to pander to all this rigid and lame notions of dental aesthetics, perfect smile line, blah blah. too bad. i only set up denture teeth in perfect class 1 occlusion and following curve of spee and whatnot, because we are expected to do so. but don't ever expect me to tell you that that's the perfect and ideal set up of teeth for aesthetic purposes. because it's not omg. no one ever said that only perfectly aligned teeth are beautiful, and the lateral incisors must be set slightly higher than the central incisors to look nice and all. i don't believe in these lame guidelines and i never will, lol. it's just stupid, that's all. to me, as long as your teeth are clean-looking and free from obvious stains and calculus, and not tooooo messy looking, i'd still say you have nice teeth haha (:
