I’ve been with the same Dental Insurance Company from the time I first graduated until now – well, technically I’m still with the same one! Insurance has never really been a big issue for me considering that I don’t work a full time load… I don’t even think I work a part time load!! =P But OHCWA (Oral Health Centre of WA) taught us that it’s better to be safe than sorry: “Cover your ass!”, and now that Australia is following the American trend of suing anyone worth suing, insurance isn’t such a bad idea.

Now in case anyone gets confused, the type of insurance I’m talking about isn’t health insurance, it’s my work insurance to cover my ass. I pay to be covered legally for any dental work I do on patients just in case they aren’t happy with it or they just feel like suing me. Although the chances of me getting sued is close to none since my working hours borderline zilch at the moment, and my patients all love me! (Well, I like to think they all do…)

The only reason I’ve even thought about dental insurance is because every year I get a letter telling me I need to pay up =( Other than that, I don’t have any contact with them at all! But this year the provider split or something, MDA is now working with Dental Protection and MIPS is on its own …I think… Regardless, I had to choose between the two and because I wasn’t too sure who to go with, I asked around a bit. 

Turns out that they agree with me, the chances of me needing any legal attention is pathetically low so I should just go with the Dental Insurance Company who charges less. And so I did =) But I didn’t chose them only because they charge less, it was also because they spelt my name correctly =) Nothing irks me more than my name being spelt incorrectly when they previously spelt it correctly!

I’ve finally stopped working at one of my dental surgeries! A big “Yay!” on the one hand because now I have all this time to do all the things that I’m meant to do:

• Renew my dental registration and DHAA membership
• Organise my accomodation in Beijing
• Organise my Bank stuff
• Finish and print mums manuals
• Renew my Drivers license
• Do my tax return!
• Sell my uni books & clear away the notes
• Catch up with an endless list of people
• Organise my transport
• Write up check list of essentials
• Start packing!~

But on the other hand, it’s sad to say that I’m going to miss everyone… especially my patients! I bought an apple strudel to work yesterday as a parting gift to everyone and I bought another for my family to munch on. OH MY GOODNESS! How delicious is that apple strudel?!? No matter how many times I’ve eaten it, I can’t help but love how good it tastes.

CORICA
106 Aberdeen Street
Northbridge, Perth WA 6003
(08) 9328 8196

Dentist-Boss-Sir-Madam shouted us a delicious and filling lunch at Thai Corner in Applecross.

893 Canning Highway
Applecross, Perth WA 6153
(08)9364 3435 - (08)9316 3491

We went a bit overboard with the ordering…. hehe Not that I’m complaining! We ordered everything on the Entree menu minus the soups (check out the photos on their website!!).

Everything for entrees was fried fried fried BUT I totally loved their ‘curry puff’ which was really fluffy & their Chiang-Mai dish (which was the only thing that wasn’t fried).

• Omlette Parcel: This was a dish I looked forward to and was not disappointed! It’s a bit like a pizza pocket with egg.
• Whisky Lamb: had a little bit of a zing in it but not too much to worry about. It has a pretty interesting taste to it and definately worth a try.
• Wrapped Chicken: This was presented very differently from the other dishes. Pieces of chicken wrapped up in leaves and the meat was soOo tenderrr!
• Green Curry: I can’t remember if it was Beef or lamb but you can never go wrong with a green curry dish in a Thai restaurant!
• Random Vege Dish: Nothing too exciting, tasted a lot like some chinese vegies.
• Crispy noodles: Everyone was suprised with this, it was definately interesting. Extremely crispy, sweet and light. It actually tasted more like a dessert than noodles!

aH! I wish I took some photos, my comments does the food no justice!!!

And to end the day, I received some parting gifts!! A Marie Claire Notebook for me to write down everything I do in China and a Vibrating Bolster Massage Cushion for me to destress! ^_-

Ignorance is bliss people! A bad thing about being a hygienist is that I’m very picky with my dentist. There’s nothing personal, I know that she’s treating me like just any other patient but when I go have my regular 6 monthly PC & SP I feel like I could have done a better job. But then again, I need to remind myself that dentists just don’t do S&P’s like a hygienist

So why don’t I just go see a hygienist instead?

Well, the main reason is that my dentist doesn’t have a hygienist and I don’t want to change dentists. Changing dentists are a pain in the ass because it’s like a relationship, you have to start from scratch and build it up over time. I think it’ll just feel weird having a stranger looking in my mouth…. And yes I realise that when I’m at work, that is exactly what I do.

Another reason is that hygienists use hand scalers more than dentists. For a typical patient, dentists usually only use the ultrasonic scaler but a hygienist will use the ultrasonic as well as hand scalers (which is why we take more time). Scalers are sharp, and they can hurt bad if used incorrectly. And since I am privileged to certain information, I have trust issues when it comes to people working in my mouth
~ I’ve always wished I could give myself a S&P~!

Anyway, what exactly is a Scale and Polish?

Scale & Polish is interchangable with Scale & Clean. In layman’s terms it’s when you get your teeth cleaned at the dentist, but I hate using the term “clean” because people ‘clean’ their teeth everyday (or so I hope!). Scaling is when we debride (remove) the calculus (tartar) from your teeth. Polish is exactly that, we polish up your teeth, remove stains with a bit of prophy paste.

So as I was getting my PC & SP, I couldn’t help but follow along in my mind what my dentist was doing. Charting, perio probing, maybe she could have spent a little more time checking for decay, scaling (U/S and a couple of strokes with the H/S), yiKes! Watch the waterworks, prophying, uh.. there’s a tiny speck on the 23 distal~! , flouride, done. At the end of it I kind of felt bad for my patients, did I treat them like just another set of teeth?

That thought didn’t last long, a job is a job after all.

I haven’t been working since Tuesday and I won’t be going in to work tomorrow either! I’m actually not that sick at the moment but I don’t think I’m healthy enough to actually work with patients. I thought I was fit for work on Tuesday but I ended up having to stop quite a few times just to go blow my nose, and my head had started to feel stuffy by the end of the day

Being sick also means I have to drink plenty of fluids to stay hydrated. A bit annoying because I normally don’t drink much water and I normally don’t need to run to the toilet between patients. But this time I had no choice! It’s a pain trying to clean up the room, do the steri, clear your nose, empty your bladder, set up for the next patient and put a friendly smile on your face all in 5mins and feeling like s… someone who has been hitting their head against the wall I hate rushing!

This is such a bad time for me to get sick because there is no staff (not even temps!) to take up my patients and the end of next week is my last day of work! I’m hoping they either get another dentist or hygienist/therapist ASAP for their own sake because they seriously need one!! Even when I try to book patients for their next appointment in February, I actually tell them that we might call to change the appointment because of lack of staff.

So calling in sick is such a pain for me to do I feel sorry for the staff who have to call up the patients to reschedule because it is such an annoying task and it feels like a waste of time. I feel sorry for the patients who have been reshuffled many times, and I feel sorry for the patients who have to end up seeing the dentist instead because dentists just don’t do S/P (scale & polish) the same

Anyway, I feel like a demon took a bite out of my life because I’ve been in bed the whole day So much wasted time just because this body doesn’t heal fast enough… Although I must admit, I would have probably been better by now if I didn’t run those errands yesterday