As promised, I'm finally posting again. I hope to post more regularly. This semester was a paradox for me. It was very stress-free. No boards, no real patient issues, no hard classes, nothing. Instead of freeing up my schedule, it actually just made me lazier, which seems strange. However, it was a huge blessing for a number of reasons. I actually got married in August (thank you) to a beautiful woman who works as a nurse in the NICU at a hospital here in OKC. She's absolutely wonderful and we're both excited to see where the Air Force journey takes us over the next few years!
Let me quickly do a sweeping recap my Fall 2012. As for dental school itself, our school went through some major changes. Not just new faculty or new equipment. Try, new clinic model, new patient processing system, new x-ray system, new digital charting, new patient schedulers, new (almost) everything. For Air Force, not much new, but I did speak with some upperclassmen and got some good advice! I'm sort of just waiting around at this point to apply for AEGD.
Our school got a major revamp, as we are now using axiUm, a digital patient management software system, for all our patient needs. It's been a learning process for sure, and mostly for the faculty at the school having to give up the paper they so dearly love (yes, that was a bit snarky). For the most part, things went very well! We also hired PSC (Patient Service Coordinators) to call and schedule our patients. This has been a lifesaver. We are still the main contact point for the patient, but gone are the days of coming home, or staying late at school, and calling patients trying to get them booked in open chairs before a classmate. Competitive scheduling has vanished in a big way, as each student is guaranteed an appointment in at least 1 discipline each clinic session. As a 4th year, students will do any procedure they wish in any clinic period. As a 3rd year, like me, we have certain times we can do certain things. It works well enough and certainly better than what we had. To cut to the chase, the technical changes at the school have all but occurred in full. We're probably 85% there. We will be doing physical renovations over the next 2 years and if the computer models are accurate at all, this place is going to look absolutely amazing! I'm really excited for the future of the OU College of Dentistry, something I honestly wouldn't have said last year before this all started rolling. This place is transforming into something amazing, really.
Like I said with the Air Force stuff, there's not much new. In fact, there hasn't been much "new" stuff for about a year and a half it seems like. Which, for those considering the scholarship, should come as a sigh of relief. I've had no problems, no hiccups, no roadblocks, no nothing. Last year, I got a sheet to give my preference for when my ADT was to take place. This year, instead of options, I was sent a sheet that basically asked me to give them a 45 day window that worked. So that was new I suppose. I choose to do March 1 - April 15 in case something funky happens with taxes I'll have some extra money. Last year I got a lot back from the state (OK) and I expect to this year as well.
P.S. I'm posting at the end of 2012, but let's pretend it's 2013 already. That means I graduate next year in 2014 (hence the title of the post). Yikes! This is flying by! I know it will be bittersweet, but for now I'm just happy that 1st and 2nd year are over and I'm actually doing dentistry. As always, email, tweet, or comment below if you have questions!
