October has gone by so quickly; I feel like I was writing about my September clinic experience and progress yesterday. However, I definitely feel less anxious when I come into clinic only because I have started working faster and training my mind to do more while working less. For example, before I was charting down gingiva description way too slow than I should’ve, I would do each section instead of just looking at the patient’s gingiva all at once and evaluating what I’m seeing all together one time. That was very time consuming and I’m glad I got rid of that habit. In August and September, I was seeing more Class I’s than I would’ve liked but lately in October, I have been seeing more Class II’s which is exciting. In October, I have had a few people say they were not comfortable coming in with COVID even after explaining we are following every protocol to keep our patients safe. Clinic during a pandemic has definitely been difficult but in my opinion, I think (most of) my peers and I have done great considering. A peer texted me one day saying we only had a certain amount of clinic days left as clinician and that really slapped me in the face. It’s definitely nerve-racking knowing we have requirements that have not been fulfilled when we’re a little more than halfway through with this semester. After midterm advising, I realized I had more requirements completed than I had thought so that was great however I am not close to done yet. We talked about how I needed a class 3 and to my surprise, that same afternoon I had a patient referred from Dr. McGee’s office that needed a deep cleaning! I may use her for my CDAR, I have not assessed her due to the fact she had 4 teeth pulled the previous week but I did get to doctor check in and did as much as I could without exploring, probing, and etc, which was not much at all. I had the chance to talk to her about the CDAR process and she told me she would be my CDAR patient if she was a good candidate since I don’t really know if she’s an easy or hard Class III. A few people have done their CDARs already and passed – I am over the moon happy for them. I am overwhelmingly nervous to do my CDAR, not that I don’t feel ready but because of the pressure and time limit but I just need to be more confident in myself and the thought of failing it would mean having to find a better candidate in such a short amount of time. So far in clinic, I have had great experiences with patients. I get really nervous for each assessment appointment I have because I have no clue what their personality is like, if they’re easy going or difficult, and more. I have found that working on friends is worse than working on a stranger. I had a friend come in complaining about the scraping feeling and noise and that they were ready to go; this really upset me considering this was a friend of mine. I’ve had patients who are complete strangers to me telling me to do what I have to do and that they did not mind coming back. My geriatric patient, Mrs. Marcy, have told multiple CI’s that I gave her the best cleaning she has ever had in her life. Comments like that really uplift my mood and make it all so rewarding. It is even more rewarding when instructors compliment your final product and give you feedback when you are doing well and not just when you are not doing so great – good and bad feedback definitely has encouraged me to do better this month and for that I am grateful. Overall, I have had a great month and I hope to wrap it all up soon within the next month and meet requirements and I pray that patients continue to show up and that we find new patients amidst the pandemic.