Well folks, this will be my last blog before I finally get to head home! I can't wait to say goodbye to Camp Virgnia after 7 months. Everyone has been talking about going home now for the last 2 months but today as I walk past our dry-erase board in the clinic I see in big letters " 9 DAYS LEFT ON CAMP VIRGINIA!". Single digits! It seems impossible. Since the last blog there have been only a few "highlights" to speak of that will comprise most of my photos this blog.

- In January we had a dining-in which is a dinner with all the officers and cheifs that was held down at AJ. In contrast to the more formal "dining-in" where spouses are invited, this one was just goofy as everyone altered their uniforms, or just wore ridiculous things alltogether. One of my favorites was from our Psychologist who wore spandex with underwear over them, a cape, and carried a whip around during the event! Pretty weird.....but you know how Psychologists are. Lilly and I had fake warefare devices embroidered on our uniforms that showed the bravery we displayed by being the only camp with absolutely NO indoor toilets!

- As far as unique patients, I had a patient that had a congenital disorder of his teeth that I have never seen in real life...only dental books. It is interesting how many people perceive themselves to be at some genetic disadvantage when it comes to their teeth, or those that have even been told by their own parents things like "ahh, all the Downey's have terrible teeth!" or "the Thorpe's have weak enamel, that is why we all have cavities". ( Sorry to use my family, but just making a point!). I have even had patients say "Well, my Dad had a denture at 35, so I assume I will too!" It is frustrating to have to explain to these people that GENETICALLY speaking, only a tiny fraction of individuals have "weak enamel" or "bad teeth". It was interesting to actually get to see this first hand. The patient was about 22 and his teeth were literally wearing away down to little stubs. He actually did not have any decay at all, but has a genetic disorder called Dentinogenesis Imperfecta Type 2. He will likely NOT have teeth much longer than 10 more years. I wish I could show my patients that do not brush, floss, or practice any good oral hygeine habits this kid to say.... "see, you don not have this condition.... your habits are what have gotten you where you are".

(Sorry for getting on my dental soap box there!)

- So January dragged like crazy, but on the 6th of February we got a chance to go off post again and we visited the Grande Mosque in Kuwait City. It was built in 89 so it is fairly new. Not that impressive to be honest. All the wood inside was Teak wood, and the chandeliers came from Germany, and the stained glass from France, so that was neat...but was not like seeing a really old church at all. They really were proud of the square footage of carpet in the main prayer room. It was interesting to wear the hijab and hear how intense the Muslim religion is.

After we saw the mosque we went to the Kuwaiti Towers and had an awesome meal. Their vegetarian dishes are unreal here! There were over 20 different things to choose from, incredibly diverse and flavorful dishes. I would love to take you all there!!!

So, since going into Kuwait we have been mailing off large boxes of all the things we collected here, working out really hard to get that last little bit of "I won't be able to work out 2 hours a day when I get home" freedom, and getting ready to show the new group how it's done. I will have a CDR replace me here at Camp Virginia. I have about 3 days to show him all the lovely things there are to know about the dental clinic and then he will be all on his own.

To summarize, I will list top 3, and worst 3 things about this deployment:

Worst

3. Bathroom/Shower being .25 miles away

2. Sleeping in a twin bed for 8 months on a hard matress
1. The leadership/or lack there of

Best

3. Learning how to run a dental clinic

2. Exercising and Reading more than I ever could in the state (Free Time)
1. Meeting LTJG Greenwood, someone I am sure will be a lifelong friend

Thats all! See you in the STATES!!

Thank you for all your support from home, helping me get through this adventure.

-

December Blog

Our replacements are coming on February 18th! I can hardly wait. I just got word of the CDR that I will sponsor (essentially just means that I will tell him what it is like out here and answer any questions). There is still no word as to the possibility of Camp Virginia getting another dentist, but the rumor is that I will not have a replacement.

Since I last blogged a I have been really busy:
On Dec 10th I took a helo ride (unknown type) out of Camp Virginia and over to the coast of the Persian Gulf. It was unbelievable! I saw how the Bedouins live (Bedouin (from the Arabic badawī (بدوي), pl. badw) are a part of the predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group.) They are essentially camping in the desert (long term) and have whole herds sometimes of camel that they own. It is impossible to see the routes they take off of the main roads to get to their “tents”, I am not sure how they do it? With my exceptional sense of direction I would have to live with different families every day. The ride was fantastic (a little scary at first) but it was intended to show the medical unit how to load litters on and off the helo in a medical evacuation type situation, I just got to go along for the ride.
On Dec 11th I left Camp Virgina to go to Doha, Qatar on a 4 day R&R pass. It was a great escape from the ground-hog day I have been living in the last 5 months. It ended up being more than 7 days away from Camp Virginia because we essentially fly on Stand-By from a military airport and if there is cargo or troops that have a mission, they obviously take priority. It made for a haphazard traveling experience (packing and unpacking several times, living in tents, sleeping without linens, and waiting…ohhhh waiting!) which I can only assume will really help me appreciate how smoothly things go in my “other life”. Brad will be happy that I was able to experience that and it will hopefully allow me to put things in perspective when our future travels don’t go as planned.
Qatar is about the same size as Kuwait and is just a hop skip and a jump (or a 45-50 min flight) over the edge of Saudi Arabia to get to. The flight over we went in a C-130 that was fully loaded with cargo. We were in jump seats knee to knee pushed up against the cab with no lavatory on board! I was nervous about that, but made it okay. My friend Carrie (an internal medicine doc) was with me, but we were the only females on the flight. The air crew said the plane was built in 1962! It was OLD, and LOUD. There was no listening to music or reading with that sound in the back ground.
When we arrived we stayed on another Army Base but were able to go on several MWR (Moral Welfare, and Recreation) trips to and from the base. We went to the City Center Mall, the Old Souqs, (A souq (Arabic: سوق, also souk, esouk, suk, sooq, souq, or suq; technical transliteration sūq is a commercial quarter in an Arab or Berber city. The term is often used to designate the market in any Arabized or Muslim city) Gold Souqs, and accepted an invite to the General of the Qatarian Army’s beach house. The souqs were impressive, but the Beach House was most unique. I was amazed by the clashing of cultures when I saw the American Air Force women in bikini’s drinking beer, next to the Sheiks in their traditional Muslim robes and headdresses? It was strange, but apparently “safe” since it was a military sponsored trip? The general did it up with 12 falcons, 10 ATV’s, 10 Jet Skis, Deep sea fishing trips, a catered traditional meal, Whippets (for petting?) and a Chetah (also for petting apparently). See photos! Obviously we were pawns for the fostering of this American/Qatarian foreign relation, which was okay by me. The General apparently extended his beach party after hearing that Qatar won the location for the 2022 World Cup (which we lost). Maybe this was his way of giving us a consolation prize.
After our four days were up we rode home on a C-17, a much more impressive ride than the C-130. I was only able to sleep at home one night before getting re-packed to go to Camp Buehring for 4 days Dec 20-23 to cover for the other dentist who is taking his R & R right now. On our way home I got to see a new born baby camel, only minutes old. It had not even stood up yet, but was giving it his best shot. It was so sweet! The sun setting and seeing mom and baby together just 3 days before x-mas. Nobody that I have talked to so far has ever seen this, and some of them have deployed 3 times before to the desert. It was a real treat.
I had so many gifts waiting for me at Camp Virginia for Christmas!

I Skyped Brad and my parents on the 23/24th at 5 am my time which was 8 pm their time. And then was able to also get a quick Skype in with the Downey's, Linnenburgers, and Mosman's on Christmas Day. I did a 5K on Christmas morning and ate some turkey and stuffing in the cafeteria.

It is so nice to be remembered by all my friends and family. I wish so much I could be with you guys. I found out that I will have to steer clear of the Christmas music, or Christmas movies as these only tend to get you in the spirit when you are with the ones you love, and get you sad when you aren’t.

Thank you for making Christmas special! Love you guys!

Thanksgiving

Things are moving along here at Camp Virginia. With only 3 months left everyone is starting to get the fever to get out of this place. The weather is getting down to the 3o's at night and then as high as 80 in the middle of the day which makes figuring out what to wear a little tricky. The port-a-johns on camp are not heated so when you go out in the middle of the night you are sitting on a very cold seat and washing your hands with equally cold water! I cannot wait to have the ease of rolling out of bed, walking on carpet and then sitting on a warm toilet seat! It will be so nice.

The main units on camp are transitioning. The new group got here about 2 weeks ago which means our camp population is doubled for awhile... making the lines to the cafeteria and the gym quite busy. We are incredibly sad to be seeing all the people that we got used to leaving and it is amazing that you really can make some good friends when you are all forced to stay in a 6 square mile area for months. Even the guys that are chronic "over-utilizers" of the TMC (Troop Medical Clinic) are faces I will miss. It never failed with these guys, once a week I would come out to the waiting room and Specialist So and So would be sitting there AGAIN. When asked what he could possibly be there for now, his answer resembled mine when Brad asks the question "what do you need to go to the mall for?". :) There is a limited amount of things to do here and I think some of these guys are just shopping at the medical clinic... what services can I have done today? Anwyay, I will miss them.

Thanksgiving was interesting here. My CDR from Yuma wrote me before Thanksgiving and told me that having Thanksgiving in theatre will be an experience you will never forget. He was right. Nothing, of course, can beat being with family and having some of my mom's awesome food, BUT as you can see by the pictures, they REALLY went all out decorating gourds, making flowers out of vegetable, and putting up displays that quite frankly were WEIRD? They had flamingo's and donkeys and mermaids and the statue of liberty??? I am not sure the TCN's (Third Country Nationals) understand what all encompases Thanksgiving, but we appreciated their hard work. I think my friend Becky said it best in her caption on face book with the donkey made out of butter..... "and who can forget the timeless tale of the thanksgiving donkey" HAA HAA.

The food wasn't too bad either. The officers served for about an hour which was fun, and then we ate and had PLENTY of everything we wanted. With no official turkey trot, the TMC ladies did an 8 mile run Thanksgiving morning to try and justify the binge eating that would go on later that day. By 8 that night, there was not a thing on my body that didn't hurt, including my gut.

In one week I will be headed to Qatar for a 5 day R&R (rest and relaxation) trip. The nurse has gone already and said it was very fun. We are allowed to drink alchohol (3 drinks) per day while we are there. I am not sure if my liver is going to know what to do!!

As you can see I have decorated for Christmas already. Brad's mom sent me a whole little village that is the envy of all my clinic. It is so pretty and makes it really feel like Christmas.

Well, I better get this posted.

Love you all! I hope you are all having a great Christmas season.

Danika

HALF-WAY...nearly

McDonalds
Some more gray land
Sometimes, this is how I get stuff done:)

Showers, Crib, and Patient Care

I can't believe how chilly it is getting here now. When I got up yesterday morning it was in the low 60's and I found myself putting on my hooded sweatshirt before heading to the gym. I would compare the days to Colorado in about mid-September. We still see the 70's during the day but it drops below 50 at night. Sure makes the port-a-potty seats an even less welcome place to be in the middle of the night.

I decided to add a lot of photos to this blog since I suppose some of my family and friends still don't have a very good mental image of what things look like out here. The most distinguishing thing about the bases here are that all the buildings are exactly the same color, which just happens to be the same color as the surrounding earth. When we arrived, the sky was also a shade of gray/tan, but I have actually seen some clouds and some blue skies even now that we are heading into winter. It is a nice change. As you will see in the pictures, the only colored things on base are the large barriers that prior units have left their mark on. There is some amazing artistry on these things, and when you see the dates it is a sad reminder that we have been at war now for over 10 years. Camp Buehring, a camp about 25 minutes from Camp Virginia is COVERED with these colorful murals on their barriers. It is an awesome site to see, as some of them take up 3-4 in an continuous picture. If I get a chance I will post some of them. Camp Buehring is only about 20 min from the Iraqi border.

Of course there is one barrier that is close to my heart, it won't be hard to figure out which one. I know it seems crazy but I pass by this one at least once a week and it gives me emotions ranging from sad (missing home) to super proud (when I imagine a bunch of soldiers getting together with their CO pride and making this mural 3 years ago).

As far as work is going, I have been averaging about 25 patients a week which keeps us pretty busy. We have it set up so that on MON,WED,FRI, andSAT I do dentistry and exams, and on TUES and THURS my tech does cleanings. The large group of 650 soldiers will have their replacements coming in about 2 weeks, and then they will be leaving early December and letting the new battalion take over. I expect my numbers will really get low again after mid-december because most of the new guys coming in will have just had there exams, and most of their work done. I am anxious about getting bored again like I was in the beginning.

We had a fun Halloween here that started with a 5K race at 6 pm in costume, and then we dressed up and went to the USO for a murder mystery, costume contest, and bobbing for apples. There were some interesting costumes. Some of which were aimed at the new Don't ask Don't Tell Repeal, and others that were just products of too much time on your hands with not enough of the right materials :) My parents sent me a lady GAGA wig, glasses, and hood and then Lilly and I made me a skirt out of trash bags, and biohazard bags. It ended up being a pretty cool costume.

I have narrowed down my piece of the earth here which I will be for the next 4 months. It is about 1 square mile. My route is home-gym (.2 miles) gym-shower (.2 miles)shower-home (.15 miles) home-work (10 steps) work-cafeteria (.33 miles). That is it!!! The PX, library, starbucks, and post office are all in between home and the gym. I really can't believe that is as far as I have been in 3 months, considering that when I am home Brad and I will be all over the US in that amount of time.

November 17th is our half-way date (aprox). It seems like it has gone fast, but at the same time it still seems like we should be further along. November 12th will be 4 months since I saw Brad and Sparky :( Everything here seems to be focused around time here. , how long since you arrived, how long till you go home, how long till this or that.

I miss everyone and hope things are going good back home! Blog you soon!

Mass Casualty Exercise

I am posting some pictures of our recent MASS CASSUALTY exercise. This is performed several times while in theatre to make sure everyone that would actually be involved in a scenario like this is ready and knows their positions. This is not something that I have ever been involved with in the states so it was a learning experience. Essentially the number of patients and their ailments is decided and when the exercise begins, someone calls into the EMS saying that they have X amount of patients in this location, and they tell you what the hypothetical incident was. Our clinic is so small that when we have more than 2 critically wounded patients, we are considered to be having a "mass casualty". The incident they gave us this time was that there was a roll-over vehicle accident and there were 7 critically wounded and 2 dead on scene.
The dental officer...yeah, you would think I would be there to fix any broken teeth of people with minor injuries 3-5 days after the initial incident...NO SUCH LUCK!! The dental officer serves as the TRIAGE OFFICER during a mass casualty.
triage ( ) n. A process for sorting injured people into groups based on their need for or likely benefit from immediate medical treatment.
So now I get to be the first one in the whole medical clinic to see the injured!! Not what I signed up for!
I stand outside the clinic as they bring me these people, the EMS brief me on what there injuries are and their vitals, and then somehow I dig into my brain to decide if they are:

Black (Expectant) which entails pain medication only until death
Red (Immediate) which entails life threatening injuries
Yellow (Delayed) which entails non-life threatening injuries
Green: (Minor) which entails minor injuries

It is a bit like playing god (maybe not quite that important), which I have decided I would probably be pretty good at...except everyone would live. The hardest category to decide on is black. Essentially if I decide someone is black it means that they are likely to die OR that trying to save them would take away valuble resources that would best be used to treat patients more likely to live. Talk about a tough call. I guess that is why we practice these things?

I do triage in my real job, but when the worst outcome is the removal of a tooth...it sure does make it easier to decide.

So here is the team and a few of the pics from the exercise. Overall we did pretty good... we sat around a round table with a lot of important people a couple days later and discussed where we could make improvements. I had to get the "some people are going to die LT. Downey, that is what happens in a Mass Casualty" talk. :(

As promised I am posting pictures of my so called “camel-ride”. Turns out that there was only one camel when we got there, a large line, and the camel would be called BAMBI if it were a deer…so I decided not to ride it and just get a picture with it. The proportion of large people waiting to ride the camel was disturbing, so I figured one less time around the circle may spare him some bad knees!
Since I last blogged I have gone from super dead at the clinic, to really taking off here. The turn around came when I spoke to the Army PA that shares the clinic with us. I asked him if he thought his Commander would be open to the idea of me getting his soldiers in to the clinic, updating their exams and trying to get their work done before they go home in December. I had tried this with one of the other groups here and had not gotten a very good response… the kicker is that the non responsive unit only has 65 guys, whereas the other group has 600. They were responsive, and now I have been ramping up to almost a full time dentist here. It is great. They are a reserve unit and therefore have a lot of dental needs. These guys get activated, they are required to come in get an exam, get any EMERGENT care done, and then they deploy. Most of them still have a large amount of NON-EMERGENT dental care that goes undone. By the time they get home, they get another exam and then usually are not considered ACTIVE anymore so getting their dental work is done is on their own $. They have been really appreciative, and it has boosted my morale to know that I am getting utilized here.
Last weekend the Nurse (Lilly) and I discovered our Beauty Salon here on base. We had seen it before but were still in our US state of mind ….meaning, we thought EWW gross, it is probably nasty in there. But, after 2 months now, we have constantly been reorganizing our ideas of what is gross. We walked in and found 2 soldiers laughing, rubbing their eyes and couldn’t figure out what was going on. As it turns out, they were getting their eyebrows “threaded”. The chance of 2 females walking in on this are, I would guess 1/100, at this base. We could tell they were a little embarrassed, so Lilly decided to capitalize on this and says “What are you going to do if I tell your unit you guys were in here getting your eyebrows threaded?” and one answers back “ We were where?, what are you talking about?” He had his denial statement down. So I asked if they come here often and the one says “No Ma’am, our mission was canceled today because of the dust, so we were bored.” It was hilarious….two guys, mission canceled that were in the salon crying from how bad it hurt to get their eyebrow hairs in-line.
Last week we went to an outlying camp and saw the band Filter. It was a good show but I was forced to drink 2 "Near Beers", felt too strange to be at a concert without a beverage in my hand. It tastes pretty good to me. We also have wine called “Fre”, I guess that is a fancy way of spelling FREE (as in alcohol free), that tastes really good. We don’t have it at our camp so we get people to bring it back when they come from Arifjan.
My little guy that came in to get the ring removed from his lip (I say little cause he is adorable 18 year old that can’t weigh more than 110 lbs) was sitting out in the waiting room last week with a splint on his arm. Apparently he is the gunner on their missions which means he sits high in the middle with a strap on him and head poking out of the vehicle, anyway, he said they hit a big bump and he was holding on to the gun handles (takes both hands) and the bottom broke out underneath him sending him down into the cab, but he was strapped in up top so couldn’t fall all the way down. His shoulder dislocated from holding onto the gun when he hit the bump. The guys in the vehicle all had sound proof ear protection on and couldn’t hear him yelling or see that he was stuck. He traveled over half an hour with his arm pointing strait up out of the vehicle, arm dislocated before someone noticed his legs were flailing around. Although he got his arm back into the socket, he has some nerve damage. Poor kid.
This month is punctuated with a birthday party for Rausa, 2 fun runs, a haunted house, lower temperatures, and the promise that another month will indeed pass!!! Love and miss you all!

The Ladies of Camp Virginia : LTJG Rousa (PA), Me, LTJG Greenwood (Nurse)

The bain of my existence, 2 compressors+ 2 pumps = my nightmare

This sign cracks me up....

Ahhh..... HM3 Duran, my dental tech....

Our "movie theatre"

My first month in Kuwait was official on September 8th, and my first 2 months away from home is official today! Yay, we are making some progress.

I wish I could say a lot has happened since I last blogged, but on the contrary, I have not blogged because things slowed down drastically here. The Stryker Brigade that came through at the end of August only stayed about 2 weeks temporarily bringing our camp population up to 1,200-1,300 but since then we have been back to our permanant party population of aproximately 800-900 soldiers (and sailors I guess:). From my estimation that means there was about 34,000 teeth under my care for awhile :) My weekly numbers went from aproximately 30 patients down to a lonely 9! We should have another surge coming in a couple of weeks and so hopefully business will be up again.

To stay busy I have been trying to help out in medical as much as I can (we had a SHOT-X last week .... short for shot exercise) in which we vaccinated about 1,000 soldiers and sailors with the H1N1 vaccine/flu vaccine combination. We had quite a line out the door for a couple of days, and one of the corpsman was kind enough to volunteer to let me give him his vaccine. It sounds simple considering almost every patient I have to inject with a needle, but when it comes to giving a shot on the outside of the mouth... it was like my first injection all over again. I was shaking and it took me a good 20 min after I was done to stop feeling jittery inside. The docs and nurse had a pretty good time making fun of me. I was able to get back at them later when the following patient came in:

The patient was about 21 and he came in to see the doc with a complaint that he had a lip ring stuck in his lip. The kid had gone on leave, decided to pierce his lip and then unfortunately got kicked in the mouth (probably was out one night...being all that he could be: ). Instead of taking out the stud, he left it and the cut healed over the post on the inside of his mouth. When he went back on duty, he had to remove it (not allowed to have that in the military obviously) but he could not access the part to remove it since it was inside his lip and healed over. So, he cut the outside ball off (not sure how) and so all that was showing was a little shaft that poked out (almost looked like a little black hair). He still couldn't get the other part out, so he came in asking if someone could remove it.
The PA (an army CPT) asked if this was something I felt comfortable doing because he had never had to cut the inside of the lip and he wasn't about to start. This was funny because they cut things open ALL THE TIME! Including cysts, absesses, etc. So now it was my time to make fun and say "ohh, you don't want to do something on the inside of the mouth, so now you know why a shot on the outside makes me uncomfortable!"

I made a little tiny cut and pulled out the guys lip ring, sewed it up and he was good to go!

I have had shadow now for the last 2 weeks and it has been really fun for me. He is a SSGT in the Army, about 24 or so but he is a medic with a unit here that runs convoys from Kuwait to Iraq every 2 days. It really sucks for him because he sits in a Humvee and drives 5 hours up to Iraq, unloads food and gear and supplies to guys, and then drives back the next day. Anyway, he came in when he found out there was a dentist here because he really wants to go to dental school and so I have been letting him watch procedures, and talking to him about how to get into school etc. He is more serious than many of the corpsman I have come across about wanting to go to dental school as he is currently taking the online Kaplan test, already has his undergraduate degree, and has come by almost every day that he has had off (even when we don't have patients) to watch and ask questions. His dad is still in the Army and is currently deployed in Iraq about 3 hours further North from where he is bringing supplies to, I am sure his mom is a wreck right now.

We had another race this Saturday in memory of 9/11. It was a 5K and I took first in my age group, and I think I was second overall for females. The PA here is 25 and she is fast! Reminds me that I am getting pretty old :(

Tonight, we are going to ride a camel?! I will take pictures and post later.

Week 3

On Wednesday my OIC (officer in charge) went to a command meeting and let Camp Virginia know that they now have a dentist. It may have not been related, but on Thursday I saw 8 patients. It was a really busy day. Many of the Stryker teams are coming through and when they come to me, they have such limited time before they leave again that my hands are tied as far as what I can do for them. In fact just last night I had a guy come with an absessed tooth (said it had been bothering him the entire deployment!) and I couldn't do a root canal on him because his plane was leaving in 2 hours. I just gave him antibiotics and percocet, hopefully the change in altitude won't be too bad on him.

Last night we had some friends from our detachment come up and have a barbeque with us at Camp Virginia. It was a great turnout, was curious why anyone would want to leave their camp to come here, but as it turns out there are things to be desired about a small camp away from the mother-ship.

I got talked into doing a 5K run at 7 pm. I wasn't plannig on doing it because I thought it would be too hot, but the people from the other camp twisted my arm and I went ahead and did it. Glad that I did as I won and got a $25 gift certificate. It reminds me of Yuma because there are about 35 guys running the race and only 7 girls.... makes it much easier to take home a prize.

Not much else went on this last week. Now I am just in my office trying to wrap up my applications to University of Iowa and University of Michigan.

Week 2

LTJG Greenwood and I standing outside the clinic (TMC) Troop Medical Clinic
My House (second door on the end)

Single Operatory (I have 4 in the clinic)

Dental Wing

This week I did more organizing, throwing away, cleaning off dust etc. I saw a total of 13 patients some with legit dental issues, and then some that were definitely something that we needed to call the WAAAmbulance for, including my 8:30 Dental Emergency that happened today!Twice now since I have arrived I have had someone come running after me on my way back from the gym to tell me we had a dental emergency, and "where was I?"... of course I don't have a duty phone like the docs,(we are working on that) so nobody can get ahold of me unless I am in my room.

Where was I? I will give you a hint: Eating, Sleeping, Working Out, Doing Laundry or In the Shower/Bathroom....that is where I will be for the next 7 months :)

It seems I frequently go from being "Oh, she is just a dentist" to " Thank god we have a dentist" which I am okay with.... unlike The Hangover, you will not get me to extract my own tooth by telling me I'm not a real doctor!

In fact... the PA, and Nurse have had to see so many rectums lately, I am very proud to not be a real doctor:)

On with my story.... so one was a root canal at 9:30 pm last Sunday, but the one worthy of the Waaambulance was today. I got the message on my way back from the shower that a girl at a nearby base knocked her tooth out. So I asked them to get ahold of her again and tell her to put the tooth in milk (yes, that is not just urban myth) and come on down. 2 hours later, the pt shows up with her partial denture in hand, and a plastic tooth submerged in about 10 oz of milk! Are you kidding.... the tooth was not even real, it had broken off her denture as she was devouring crab legs last night! ARRRG

#1. WTF

#2. We didn't get crab legs last night!

I am posting a bunch of pics for you guys to see the lay of the land and the clinic.

1 Week Down 26 to go !?

Made it through the first week! My god, the clinic is a wreck. Not only have I had to go through and remove about $4,500 worth of expired items, the dust on the shelves and boxes of supplies makes me SICK! I knew there would be dust, but when it comes to items that will be used in a health care setting, I just cannot accept things being visibly dirty! I saw only 2 patients this week but it is a good thing! I have had trouble with just about everything that I could have:
- No phone, internet, or printer in my office
- Lack of supplies, tons of expired items
- No access to program to input patients in dental system (all my medical collegues use a similar system, the dentists however use the Army's program while in theatrer to input dental encounters)
- My Tech, bless him, is having just about as much trouble as me and so I have to stop my projects to help him with things... which by the way...I have no idea how to either, so I have to read about it, then show him!
The big wigs came up from Camp AJ and I believe they are going to send me someone else who knows something about Dentistry (thank god). In the "real world" there would be a senior enlisted person who would guide my tech on what he needs to do, how to do it etc, and there would be little interaction between my tech and me (except when we started treating patients), but since there are no senior enlisted people that have ever worked in dental, they cannot guide him.... which leaves me. All the time spent helping him, is time less time that I have to do the stuff I need to get up and running. Wow, am I ranting or what?
Anyway, before I bore you all into never reading my blog I will point out some highlights
1. We have a starbucks!
2. The gym is nice and is not busy much
3. I saw a cat and I gave him water (Violation of a general order!)
4. My room is my own, even if it does not have a bathroom and the shower facility is located about .2 miles away
5. The DFAC (dining facility) has OK food....at least it has a salad bar
I am going to post some pictures really soon! Love you all.