GPG... testing my dental materials knowledge

  As the semester is drawing to a close, I would like to reflect on my days spent in GPG. Wednesday is my last day spent in GPG land and I feel grateful to be finishing the rotations for now. I found the GPG experience to be very dependent on the day, dental student, and treatment. Overall I felt that it was difficult to find an eager dental student to allow me to perform a cleaning or to assist in the beginning of the semester. I have noticed that as the semester has gone by, the dental students seem much more willing to say yes to my assisting offers. My GPG experience changed with each dental student I helped out. Most of the dental students were confident, easy going, and were amazing with their patients.
      However, there were certain students who were nervous, did not seem to know what they should do next, or had horrible patient communication. In one rotation I worked with a D4 who seemed to be more concerned with time than explaining to his patient what needed to be done. The patient actually confided in me several times when the D4 left that she was confused and was not sure what had changed in her treatment plan. Once the D4 returned, I asked that he explain to his patient what he was doing, since she was confused. He merely stated that he was doing the same thing as before and that he was short on time to go in depth about it. I was quite shocked that he couldn't at least explain it to the patient while prepping the site. Hopefully this D4 will pay more attention to his patients once in practice.
       Aside from the dental students personalities, I felt that GPG allowed me time to review dental material properties. I often questioned the placement of certain dental materials and gained further information from the dental students. I was introduced to a few materials not covered directly in dental materials. Ti-Core is an example of such unknown materials. It was interesting to hear why it was placed and how it reacts. There are two separate parts, the white part is the catalyst and the grey is the hybrid composite (with titanium or lathanide). Ti-Core is self-curing when mixed and is chosen because of its strength and longevity. Ti-Core information 
         I hope that Wednesday's GPG will be well spent and educational. The GPG rotations have been helpful and have prepared me for future communication with dental students and dentists.