IV day

Today we had our IV practical for our anesthesia class. It's funny how if you let yourself get so worked up about something, the anticipation is worse than the actual event! I think this was the case for most of my classmates and me - today was not a day I was looking forward to and it ended up being - dare I say? - fun! :) Well, one of my classmates fainted just watching someone else start an IV, but she's the same one that started crying when she had to have the nitrous for our last practical, and last year she cried when she had to have several shots for our local anesthesia course. So, I guess you could say she doesn't like to be the patient. Good thing she's going to be the doctor! lol
Anyway, I had a patient this morning who needed one of his top teeth filled. Normally, when I do a procedure one week and do something similar the next I get faster, but today was not the case! Everything went pretty well until it was time to get the tooth ready to be filled. There are bands you place around the tooth to hold the filling in as you shape it, and there are wedges you stick on both sides of the tooth if you are filling both sides of the tooth. The wedges are important because they keep the filling material from being pushed down into the gums around the teeth. So today as I was placing the second wedge to hold the band in place, the clamp that holds the band popped right out of my patient's mouth and onto the floor! Oops! :) So then I had to start over and it was still not working how I wanted it to... Finally the instructor had pity on me and modified it with one of his neat little tricks. Ah, experience... So from that point on it went well and my patient has a shiny new filling! :)