Dental Training (6/28) || Bao Phung

Today is dental training (alongside with medical training later into the day). The day started bright and early at 7:45 AM. This is honestly probably the earliest I’ve woken up in a while; definitely giving us a hint of what mission trip is going to be like. The training took place at Dr. Bui’s dental clinic in Newport Beach. Thankfully, it was not too far so it didn’t take that long to arrive at the clinic. When we got started, MEMObers were split into different groups. Each group will go through 5 stations: hygiene/sterilization, suctioning, surgical procedures and tools, medical emergencies, and proper ways to hand instruments to dentists. Each station is lead by different doctors. Looking back on the training, it was definitely a lot of information to remember (especially in the early morning too). For me, I would say that my past experiences as a dental assistant helped me get through the training, but regardless, I still look notes (on my phone) about certain procedures or information that I might not have known or want to remember. The training is very similar to OC Health Fair’s dental training, so students who have been in dental during the health fair might feel that it was a refresher.

I really loved dental training (granted, I am pre-dental so it felt very interesting to me). While parts of the training felt familiar, there were also other parts that introduced new information. In part, it was also due to our dentists and their amazing way of teaching. I think that the information was delivered very well and each doctor was very soft-spoken. They were very engaging, such as asking us questions and even do simulations. There were a few rotations where each actually got to act as doctor-patient and “practice” what was being taught (like the proper way to hand off tools). Each dentist was extremely detailed about their specific station and made it very fun. Towards the end, everybody was quizzed (although we did it in groups). The quiz questions were rather fair and I believe that it was a good summary of everything that we learned during training. The prize made it all worth it. Overall, while the training required us to wake up bright and early in the morning, it was still very fun and informative.

Shoutout Team Fear the Three (Joseph, Ryan N, and Jolie). Y’all were the best teammates. :D

Dr. Timothy Bui showing the team about proper hygiene (here, he is showing how to properly remove gloves).

Dr. Tiana Dinh showing the team about how lidocaine and the needle is loaded into the syringe.

Dr. Loc Do showing the team about dental instruments that will be used during clinic days in Vietnam.