Ear piercing screams to finish the week

Friday 12th July

After running late all day yesterday, and feeling like I was doing a rubbish rushed job of drilling and filling, today has been more productive. However, Dr Naren still thinks I'm incredibly boring because I take too long to do a filling (even though I am so much faster than I am at uni) she's not really interested in checking stuff thoroughly, she seems to know when there are still caries present just by looking, like she's got superhuman, tactile vision! I like that though, gives you more control and responsibility if you don't have everything checked every other second.

So this afternoon I stayed on clinic whilst Jessye went on outreach. All I did all afternoon was extractions, which was good because I didn't have much luck with my extractions yesterday, not being able to do some of them due to difficult teeth. But today I have been more confident and able to do all of them. One child was totally petrified and shrieked so loud, my ears were ringing afterwards. I've found you just have to be confident and forceful, and do it as quickly as possible, whilst trying to ignore the screams. I have to rely on the nurse, or supervisor (who speak Khmer) to tell me whether the child feels only pressure, or if they actually feel pain...but during that particular extraction, I was surprised such screams could indicate the feeling of pushing and fear....nevertheless I managed to whip the teeth out swiftly and the child resorted back to just whimpering.

This week has gone so quickly! And we have done so much dentistry (and so little sightseeing/touristy things - getting up at 6.30am and not getting back until 5.30/6pm leaves very little time to do anything other than grab dinner and wind down).....so I'm hoping to visit the temples tomorrow morning and then chill out for a bit in the afternoon as I am pretty exhausted from this busy week!

I think I came here with the expectation of gaining a lot of experience and learning, which has proved to be true, but one thing I've found is that we're not just here for our own good but for the good of the patients. It's not like England where you can take time discussing different treatment options with the patient, and persuade them to go for the most expensive option or whatever. Here it's all about getting the child out of pain, treating their illnesses, and giving them a better chance...there's no time to write up fancy notes like what bur you used etc, or even the batch number of the LA cartridge. You've just got to write the essentials and move onto the next patient.

So after a great week, I'm glad it's the weekend, and hope to find time to relax and do some touristy things.....