Tooth Fairy In The Making

Fuming

I checked my email looking for new mail and I found an unusual email.

Dear Dental Girl,
We have received a complaint from one of the nursing staff that you have been working unsafely. We take things like this very seriously and would like you to meet the Clinical Coordinator first thing on Monday morning. Thank you.

W.T.F.

Then I remembered what happened this morning.

Instruments in the hospital are packed in stainless steel cassettes. Nurses generally want us to keep the instruments IN the cassettes, as opposed to taking them all out.

So I was doing my endo with my rubber dam kit on the bracket table... with Nurse A helping me with suction. She then volunteered to move my endo kit over to the bracket table instead. Except she took out every single instrument and laid it out on the bracket table, instead of just moving the whole kit over.

Whatever. No time to complain. Just continued doing my endo.

Time to close up. Called Nurse B to please help me get some paper points so I could dry my canals. Nurse B huffed but went to get them anyway and stalked off.

Finished the treatment, sent the patient back and set to work to pack up the many many things that I used.

Nurse C (presumably the one who complained) came up and told me off for taking all the instruments out. I told her that I didnt' do it, someone else did. Then I just proceded to pack everything up in a hurry.

She then said I left my burs in my handpiece, which is unsafe. I just nodded and removed them. She then said my ultrasonic scaler was left uncapped. That was because the stupid cap fell off! I didn't bother to explain - I was already 15 minutes late and my demonstrator was waiting for me to write up my case. I just packed up everything and rushed off.

So technically speaking, the only thing I did wrong was to accidentally leave the stupid bur in the stupid handpiece. Which is a very common error.

I know what it's all about - she's pissed because I appeared to be not listening to her and disrespecting her when in reality, I just had too many things on my mind to actively listen and apologize for all my supposed many transgressions.

Now I have an entire weekend to wait until I get to meet the clinical coordinator who's probably going to give me a lecture on infection control, safety and respect towards nurses.

Just. Great.

Labels: Dental School

posted by Dental Girl at 8:34 PM