End of D2 Year

Wow! This year truly flew by. I have been waiting for the moment I finally get to leave Kirksville since I moved here five years ago. I am definitely a city girl at heart, and Kirksville has taught me a few good things these past years.

1. Any old town can feel like home when you are surrounded by a great community. KLife, church, the kids I nanny, and classmates have made my stay much more bearable, and I have definitely felt connected and loved by many.
2. Small towns don't have any traffic. 
3. You can get anywhere within city limits in 5 minutes.
4. When there isn't much to do, you count on friends to make things interesting. 

Leaving Kirksville is exciting, and I couldn't be more thrilled to be moving back to the city. I just wish I was moving back to KC to be close to all my friends and family. I have moved all my things into my new city apartment, where I will live for the next two years before... GRADUATION! Living in a high rise apartment is not something I thought I would ever do, but I will probably never live in a downtown apartment again, so I'll make the most of it!

These past few months of school have been a whirlwind of craziness. I decided to double up on online public health courses in order to finish my certificate of public health early. That may have not been the best decision for my sanity, but I survived! These classes require about 5-10 hours a week so taking two took a good chunk of my time each week, on top of my regularly scheduled classes in school. I now only have one online class left and I'll be finished with my certificate that is required for my school. In the classroom I've learned how to make dentures from start to finish, fix broken dentures, and clean and polish them. I learned how to put braces on, work on baby teeth and kids, treat medically complex patients, and the elderly population. I learned how to give injections, so my work isn't painful. I also learned what it feels like to get injections and to be numb, so I can understand what my patients are feeling. I learned how to clean teeth and use an ultrasonic cleaner. I also learned about oral pathologies and how to treat varying levels of normal and abnormal. These past few months have really tied everything I've learned in the past two years together, and helped me understand how to apply the information in a clinical way.

To finish up our second year of school, we all move to St. Louis, and then have clinical orientation through the end of June. We will learn all the ins and outs of the clinic in order to be prepared to see our VERY FIRST PATIENT on July 5th! The beginning of July we officially become D3s and will spend a year seeing patients in St. Louis. To finish our education, our fourth year we will spend half the time in St. Louis, and half the time at external rotation sites in community health centers. This will give us the opportunity to see more patients and to gain more experience, than only seeing two patients a day.

Until our orientation starts, we have two and a half weeks to finish moving and to take a little break from school before we are back at full speed. I'm ready for a couple weeks to relax and wedding plan, since I've been so busy with school, little planning has occurred. I'm excited to be finished with book work and tests, and ready to test out my skills in clinic!