Dental life : Chapter 2.1 - Secondary Cast

Yesterday was a whole day of franticness and chaos. Everyone was so engrossed with their works that a friendly chat in between seemed diliberately unnecessary. Well I think some have better luck than others and I am always thankful that I'm quite lucky myself. I wouldn't say that I really did have the right technique because sometimes I don't really. It's just that I'm really persuasive and maybe I like to gain sympathy from the person who marked my work which is definitely the worst trait of a working professional. I have to make sure the next time I do something, it's for the sake of learning and producing high-end products and not because I wanted to be better or faster than others. Well I am a student so learning is just an included necessity in the whole process. If I forget that part, there's no use in learning at all because I gained nothing.

After having to take the secondary impression, we had to pour immediately soon after because Alginate is known to distort overtime and it won't produce the exact imprint if not poured right away. So we (the girl I told you in my previous post) both rushed to the casting room and straight away mixed stone with water. We have to reach the right consistency for this particular procedure since having it too thick will not allow the stone mix to reach and fill in the whole area in the impression whilst too much water will just produce too much air bubble in the mix.

We opened the vibrator to allow the mix to flow smoothly into the impression. We brought our lecron (a two-end carving instrument. It looks a bit like a long wand with a knife on one end and a small carver on another) and used it to assist the flow of the mix into the cavity and made sure there wasn't any air bubble.

Air bubble will just ruin the whole cast and might just remove the necessary recorded landmark and details in the impression and made a hole in the areas. That's why it's so important to produce a well even out cast with no air bubbles on its surface.

Then we made the base out of plaster of paris and made a lump onto a tile. And turned the impression over and placed it onto the lumped POP. I've made sure that the orientation of the impression is already correct so that we would save so much time readjusting it later on. Make sure that the retromolar pad is higher and the orientation of the teeth is at the right degree. After a while, the whole thing set. And we opened up the impression and how relieved we were to see that there was little air bubble.

This is my cast. There were a lot of air bubble that I had to cover them up by adding a bit more stone. I have to keep on reminding myself that this procedure requires patience and scrutiny. If I forget to pour it down gently then I'll trap more air bubble. So I have the top with stone and Plaster of Paris (POP) as the base of the cast.

Occlusal View.
Note that this is my cast and not my friend's cast. Hers was much better and more refined. I wished that I had produced something better. There are a lot of uneven surfaces. and my recorded rests were not detailed. I had to use my lecron to refine the details which is a definite no-no in this step. I would not have the same end result as the patient's real cavity prep that I've done if I were to do it in real life. Since this is not done on a real patient, it's okay for now. 

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What I like the most about helping people is the smile on their faces. And I know I shouldn't be telling others about my deeds. It's just that I think it's necessary since I learned a lot while helping people and I wanted everyone else to do the same. Actually you're not only helping other people, you're also helping yourself. You'll learn new things in the process as well. And maybe redeem the mistakes in your previous work that the whole thing would be another experiment to know whether if you were to do it any differently would it produce different result?  And also you would just remember everything better since you are doing the same thing all over again.

Well I think that's all for now. And pray that I'd be a great dentist. Amin. :)