A New Voice

My whole life so far has been a push to get to the next thing.  To achieve the next goal.  I've been pushing and working to be right where I am (maybe not Alaska specifically, but you get the idea) since I decided to become a dentist back in 2007.  But that was during college, a place I wouldn't have been without good grades and the solid work ethic I developed in High School.  Which was obviously a carryover from that high-energy Middle School kid I was before that.  Don't forget the little me who was always fascinated by science and helping others!

Ok, so I guess... theoretically... I've reached the place I've been pushing for my whole life.  But what does that mean?

To me, it means this.  It's time to decide what's next.  I have thoughts and ideas about what I want to do, who I want to be, etc., but there's no carrot sitting out there for me to chase anymore.  Not an obvious one, anyway.  In some ways I feel like I'm "done" with what I wanted to accomplish.  And in a purely goal-oriented sense, I guess I am.  I didn't plan any further than this.  I wanted to be a dentist.  Poof.  Done.

Now What?

I thrive on structure and planning.  It's in my blood (all my blood cells are in perfect lines and neatly flow through their respective vessels).  Until now, most of that structure has been structured for me.  And you'd think that in the Air Force it would still be there.  It is to an extent, but I'm undecided on if the Air Force is going to be my long term plan so even that structure may not apply to me.

From birth to the end of my AEGD residency, there were goals to hit and tasks to hit them.  Now the goal is... whatever I want it to be!  It's freeing and a little scary at the same time.  My life has always revolved around some sort of curriculum or syllabus and has been divided into 9-week and 2-semester intervals.  No more!  It's summer time and for the first time ever, I don't really have a "summer break".  I worked a lot when I was younger during high school and college (even dental school) and I'm so thankful I did.  It showed me life outside of the academic bubble, and I'm fully immersed in that now.

The last few months in Alaska has sort of been me kicking up my feet and not feeling the pressure of performance from outside sources for the first time in my life.  But as those voices from the outside fall away into the past, a new voice has emerged to push me.

Mine.

Ok, weird dude. What's that about?  So without professors and instructors and mentors saying "don't do that" or "let me show you"... even "nice job!" and "good work!", I have to be that for myself now.  It's made me thankful for the training I've received because I have an internal compass of what I want to do and what I want to be.  I have to look at a filling and say "wow that's great!" or look at an impression and say "I really need to take this again", no one is doing that for me.

And it's slowly coalescing into a new vision for my life, one that's still pretty blurry (but getting clearer) right now.  As a believer in Christ, I am constantly pulled towards things and ideas that allow me to give to others more than I take.

Just an introspective post for you guys.  Remember that all the training you're going through is helping you develop your voice.

Specific questions can be sent to my email.  Comments are moderated so they take a couple weeks sometimes for me to check up on.  Have a great summer!

I Can Almost Taste It

I'm officially in that weird stretch of school where things are almost done, and I feel a true sense of them being done, yet I still have a lingering stress of making sure everything actually does get done (follow that?).

I also feel like things really are starting to end as I bid farewell to some patients for the last time and reflect on all of the struggles my class in particular has had over the last 4 years with all the changes here at Oklahoma.

And finally, I'm starting to feel like this Air Force thing is real.  That's where this post begins.

Just after my last post in October, I found out officially that I will be heading to the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO for my 1-year AEGD.  It is scheduled to begin August 5th and presumably will end around that same time next year.  Before that, however, I am slated to attend COT in the July class (June 30-Aug 1).  Right now my wife and I are trying to decide if we should move to CO just before COT or try to squeeze it in right after.  It's a tough decision and I'd rather move before, but it's probably going to come down to how comfortable we are financially.

Just before Christmas my wife and I actually went up to CO Springs to look around and we found two great apartment complexes just E of the Academy.  My housing stipend will be about $1600/month so we are shooting for something in the $1000-1200 range to maximize how much we can save while still enjoying our time there.  We plan to call the 2 complexes back in a month or so and whichever can offer us the better deal we will probably take.  We like one of them a little more than the other but we'll see how it all shakes out.

I haven't received my official orders yet but they should be coming soon.  That will allow me to schedule the AF to move my stuff and get that all sorted out.   My wife is a NICU nurse and she'll be applying for a Colorado license soon so she can start looking for jobs out there.  It's probably going to be a bit difficult considering she'll only be there for 1 year but I'm confident she'll find something, even if it's part time.  

In terms of dental school, things are coming together nicely.  I won't get into the details, but my class has taken the brunt of the changes here at Oklahoma the last few years and we are chronically behind in clinic compared to the classes before us and the upcoming classes behind us when we were them.  Fortunately the faculty seem like they're going to be flexible with us because we are simply running out of time to get everything done.  I think I'll actually be able to meet all of the requirements so I'm still working hard assuming that our requirements won't change (which they likely will).

So things are finally coming together and starting to seem real, but I'm still in the fog of school and working hard to finish up on time.  As soon as I do, I'll have about a month and a half off (May 10 - June 30) to just hangout, which will be very nice.  I'm such a high-gear person though that I think it's going to be kind of hard for me to have so much time off and I'm already trying to make arrangements to work part time or something for that short period that I'm waiting.  We'll see! 

Other than filling out tons of very similar forms for the Air Force that are emailed to me weekly (name, SSN, address... etc.), not much else has happened besides finding my AEGD spot and looking for a place to live.  Things will heat up even more soon once I get my orders and buy my uniform (soon!) so stay tuned for more frequent postings as school comes to an end and my Air Force journey begins.

As always, email me if you have any questions!

It's summer break (again)!

My 2nd summer break is finally here!  We have 3 weeks off after Spring Semester, and then 3 weeks off after our 8 week Summer Semester.  Also, I'll be getting married on August 11 and I very excited to open that new chapter in my life as well.  She'll be a nurse, the perfect occupation to come travel with me in the Air Force for a few years (at least) after I graduate.

Our school is going through some massive changes right now.  I just got trained taking digital radiographs last week, as our dark room was completely removed to make room for a brand new computer lab to view digital x-rays.  It looks amazing!  We are also dumping our paper charts in favor of axiUm, a digital record keeping software that will be the new lifeblood of our school.  The patient's x-rays, charting, treatment plan, financial information, etc. will all be in axiUm.  Each operatory will be getting a computer (presumably by the time we come back in August) where we can input this information.  This will dramatically change the look and feel of the way we deliver treatment.  My biggest concern is the faculty members that are not too excited about the introduction of new technology.  I think most of them see it as an obstacle rather than an opportunity.  It's unfortunate, but I think most of the students are very excited about getting rid of these paper records and get more in tune with how dentistry is done in the real world.  After all, most practices that my classmates will start or buy into will be using digital records of some kind so I think it's invaluable to learn dentistry using these kinds of technologies now.

On the Air Force front, not much is new.  Just bought some health insurance again for the new year and will be submitting a reimbursement for that soon.  Also, my LES (for my stipend) has been going to my old address and I've been trying to sort that out.  They come every 2 weeks so here in a couple days I'll see if my latest address change efforts will get them going where they need to be, to my new house!

On a side note, school is slowing down a lot now.  I'm excited because hopefully I can start getting back in the gym and get my body in shape for COT.  I played sports in high school and recreationally in college, and I even play basketball quite a bit now, so it's not like I'm out of shape by any means.  I can pull off about 9:40 on my 1.5 mile run which puts me near the high end of the Air Force PT scoring.  Having said that, I want to prepare myself in the best way possible and I'm looking forward to trimming that time even more and getting stronger for COT in the summer of 2014.

I think that's all for now, lots of personal changes and changes at school.  Things are getting easy which means I have more time to do the things I want to do.  It feels like the big hurdles have been overcome and now I just need to buckle in and keep doing what needs to be done and in 2 short years, I'll be a dentist!

It's also that time of year again when people are starting school and I'm getting more and more emails.  Don't hesitate to email me if you have any questions about the program and check out the tabs at the top for more information!

Been a while...

Well, it's darn near 2 months since my last post. Sorry I've been so lax lately! We are currently in a newly designed 8 week summer session and it has one huge upside and one huge downside...

Upside: Nearly half of our schedule are slots for patient scheduling and we only use it if we have a patient we want to schedule at that time... meaning 90% of those times we are off.

Downside: So much time off = most insane case of laziness of all time. We'll have a grand total of about 4 tests over the summer. That's 1 test every two weeks (average). Compare that to the roughly 100 test fall last year and you see the issue. No one is in high gear and it's just not a good deal! Motivation is not there.

Not much new on the Air Force front... no COT this summer, maybe next? I'm thinking probably 2014 at this point. Wish I could go and have lots to tell you all! Looks like that will have to wait.

Oh! Not sure if I mentioned this before somewhere (don't want to check, sorry!) but I was elected president of the class of 2014 for the next year! The guy that was president didn't want the position any longer so I stepped up and won the election, so that was neat! It's a lot of fun for me to have this responsibility and put this on myself. It keeps me motivated.

As always, email me with questions!