JourneY as a 2nd year dental student!!!

So now I was a second year student…traveling back from home after my first year results was a mixed feeling…. A good feeling which was like Vow finally 1 year gone and I am 1/4^th of a doc. But at the same time…oh man not again away from home….same place…same college….again nostalgia to worry u….

But then soon second year started… we got to know what real dentistry is like… carving an actual tooth-size tooth from a wax block, cutting cavities and filling it with silver amalgams…arranging teeth as for complete dentures in an ideal relation… All of which was too much for a start… now our batch went on for a mid-term vacation and returned back a bit late…planned mass bunking say 1 week extra…And here we were …. Badly screwed by our new incharge… he made sure v don’t get a minute to think something other than prosthodontics… we toiled like donkeys… we used to fabricate occlusal rims till 4 am in the morning… A sudden forward sms saying submit mounted rims by 9:30 tomorrow morning…was enough to scare the shit out of us…and v used to sit in the reading hall with our prostho lab opened working on our spirit lamps with some oldie songs like kishor kumar till 4 am trying to get our hands on making an ideal looking pair of rims….

This went on and on for an entire year so much that v actually had no time to think about theory papers…subjects like microbiology, general pathology, pharmacology, dental anatomy and oral histology were all lying on our shelves waiting for us to actually go to them and open them and try to grab some part of it…but in vain… twenty days before the exam here we were… our batch pushing each other …get up study man 20 days left…wake me up at 12 plz… did u read this plz explain me this…. Some sitting in corridors… some in reading room…some in the mess…some outside under a tree…some on the terrace…some in rooms…some in college libraries…but everyone toiled… day and night… one thing I must say about my batch even though v were fun loving, believed in total pranks and unadulterated joy…but each one of us made it a point to be extremely serious and hard working during exam preparation leave….some studied off repeated questions and answers…some studied seniors notes…some studied std texts..some studied short handbooks…some did not read themselves but made it a point to get it all by their friends  for the first reading… but in the end everyone did well…and cleared…! For the entire year our seniors used to make fun of our batch, look at budding prosthodontists… they work on prosthetics like a PG in prostho like a maniac…I wish they could know how it is to work like that, with deadlines set a night before, for the next morning!!

Anywayz… there came my exams…again this time a wonderful thing happened one night before DAOH theory… I got allergic rhinitis.. running nose…watery eyes…sneezes…not able to read a word…got so pissed off..but still was pushing myself with a book…I was scared not to take cetrizene tablet as it would put me to sleep…and repeated sneezes made me pop half a pill of cetrizene and my roomie was like u sleep I will wake you up at 3am.. I believed her and put an alarm and slept off… poor me…she also slept off my snooze kept ranging and hardly I could realize…. My mom called me up at 6am to wish me good luck for the paper…and that’s when I actually got up…….Amazing…I was badly screwed…I hated myself at that point of time for not getting up on time or for popping that pill or for giving in to allergic rhinitis…I cried aloud……washed my face… took my hand book forgot the standard text that I read for the whole year as it had pages and pages of stories on a single chapter…And I had no time…2 subjects Dental anatomy and Oral Histology and 2 ½ hours… lovely….i thought I am gone…this is dental subject…I am screwed up… my mom gave me a new hope…she said “ Is it the first time you are reading?? Just flip pages and go … I know u have read well for the entire year and you gonna do well…”

I was like….I HOPE I CAN DO SOMETHING!

Somehow read OH enamel, dentin, cementum, pulp, tooth development…I was reading till the last second before entering the examination hall… I hardly read DA… it was untouched.. I was like if it comes I have some idea shall write atleast something that a tooth has so many roots so many cusps…so many root canals..so many curves and all dat crap… look at my confidence I mean I don’t know what happened but I somehow did not give it much importance….

Here comes the paper…………….one DA question for 5 marks out of 100 rest all OH…….i was like vow was paper setter my relative? Did he know that I haven’t read DA? It was a very strange pattern no DA long note, no DA …majority of OH and I was like OH MY GOD! I wish I had revised OH better but then somehow I just wrote well….i scored 67/100 in DAOH…

I have noticed in my exams when something like disturbed mind or not proper revision happens I tend to do much better when I have revised well it becomes a bit tough although it feels like I have done well after my exams but somehow not so prepared turns out to be better than well prepared… strange but true!!!

In practicals…I was complimented for a good carving on silver amalgam restoration by my external examiner…It felt awesome!

And here I was again…second year cleared!!! Another sense of achievement! Yippy I am ½ doctor now!! But I realize now our batch has the BEST handwork in prosthodontics till date… and it wouldn’t have been possible without all that grill!!!