First Week: General Dentistry

Rotation: General Dentistry 

When we arrived at Baylor we were given a brief tour of the Dental Department composed of 7 main floors: oral surgery, perio, general dentistry, pediatrics, ortho, endo and prostho. We were given our badges to be identified as student observers and continued to learn about the protocol that Baylor withholds. Starting out with the HIPPA: which is the patient confidentiality and that we shall not discuss any cases outside the clinic, continuing with online tutorial of the American Heart Association in order to be able to give CPR and last but not least we received a lecture on infection control.

Baylor 

 We start at 8 am everyday and attend lectures for two hours, the classes include: Orthodontics, Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, Applied Pharmacology, Practice Administration, Pediatric Dentistry, Professional Ethics & Dental Jurisprudence, Advanced Principles of Patient Evaluation and Advanced Techniques & Materials. From 10-5 pm we attend the General Dentistry Clinic, where we are able to assist in procedures involving: crowns, fillings, root canal treatments, postes, bridges, cleanings, sealants, veneers, etc.

It has been an incredible experience because we have been able to learn new techniques from the fourth year students  and show them our way of doing the same procedure, making every appointment a collaboration between the techniques from Baylor College and Tec of Monterrey.

We were able to assist a practical exam they had, in which they had to perform a root canal treatment on the 1.6, it was very interesting because we do not perform root canal treatment in molars so being able to see how they made it was amazing. I was able to learn how to use GUTTACORE which is a machine that melts the guttapercha and then they apply it to fill the root canal, I was also able observe them clean the root canal with rotary instruments instead of manually like we were taught.

GUTTACORE equipment 

The guttapercha inside the canal 

The Dental Clinic is huge, composed of over 100 units in which they use a similar device as we do, they have a computer in which they have their patients information and evaluations.

They also have a section called Advanced Technology which consists of 6 units fully equipped with the latest technology  from the best chairs, to  X-Rays, scanning devices for crown prep, CAD CAM, Vita Easy Shade Compact which is a device that scans the color of the patient's crown in order to replicate a similar color for the new porcelain crown. So the students are able to be assigned to these units in order to be introduced to the latest technology in Dentistry.