Claire Jeong is the founder of StudentRDH.com, dentaltoaster.com, smarterDA.com and now https://wakeupmemory.com/
This week, Claire helps us to remember the important details we need to know when treating patients with diabetes.
Check out her website, dentaltoaster.com for more info and other great CE courses, including one by Michelle!
For your viewing pleasure this TIPisode has been transcribed:
Michelle Strange: A Tale of Two Hygienists presents this week’s TIPisode: Quick and easy tips to keep you up to date, and presented by the experts in the profession. Now, get ready for your unofficial TIPisode.
Claire Jeong: Hello. This is Claire at StudentRDH dental hygiene exam prep solution and DentalToaster CE courses. By now you know that my topic revolves along memory techniques and how to fire your brain so you can remember anything better and have a better quality of life. Well, when we’re clinicians, we always have patient [sic] that come with medical conditions, and now because of our diet, we have a lot of patient that come with diabetes, right? Think about your practice. How many patients with diabetes have you seen while you were practicing?
It’s important to know the medical conditions because each medical condition is attached to certain findings, whether it’s in their mouth or whether it’s in other parts of their body. Today, let’s find out together what diabetes can do to a patient so we can customize our treatment for that patient and help them the best way we can.
So memory palace is an extremely, extremely powerful tool for memory. Anything we do, we like to make it visual. We like to make it sensory. If we just reread words, that’s never going to stick in our brain. But at WakeUp Memory, I teach you how to just empower your brain. So our acronym at WakeUp Memory is always I.S.E.E. I see, right? I for intent. You have to intend that you’re going to memorize it, that you’re going to pay attention. S for see. You see it. You observe it. E for edit. You’re like a movie producer. You edit things so you can find something that resonates with you. And E for extra. You’re just going to sprinkle some magic sprinkles on top just to make it easier, again, for your brain to like it.
So memory palace is basically a room or a house or just this place that have [sic] many different stations. So let’s think about your operatory. I have an image of an operatory in my head or in front of me. Let me start with number one. The station is the window. Sometimes if we’re lucky, we have a window to the outside. Let’s picture a nice beach on the outside if the practice was in Malibu. I wish, right? So let’s picture that window. That’s station number one. Station number two is the dental assistant’s chair, right? As dental hygienists, sometimes we have dental assistant. If you’re a dentist, you definitely have a dental assistant who is working with you. So let’s think about that dental assistant’s chair that’s on the left corner below the window.
Now, number three — our station number three is the patient chair, the one that moves up and down that you can recline and all that. And then number four is going to be that station where you put your high-speed suction or many different tools that you use in your practices for the patient. So that’s number four. And then number five would be the overhead light, right? The one that you move to see better in the patient’s mouth. And number five [sic] will be — let’s say you have a cabinet when you put your cotton rolls — where you put your extra supplies, your floss, and anything else.
So you have the stations here. Let’s review them together. Number one is the window, number two is the dental assistant’s chair, number three is the patient chair, number four is where you have your high-speed suction, and number five is the overhead light, and number six is the cabinet.
Now, here, I’m going to place conditions that are related to diabetes that are relevant to our dental practice. I’m not placing random items. We are talking about diabetes right now. So, if a patient has diabetes, they are more likely to have dry mouth, periodontal disease, less blood flow, infection, tingling, pain and numbness, and delayed wound healing. If I give you the list like that, it’s very hard to remember, right? How many items can you repeat of what I said? Maybe one, two, three? But using the WakeUp Memory and this memory palace is going to be so much easier for you. Let’s do it together.
Number one, it was the window, right? Imagine you are in Malibu and there was a storm and all the sand accumulated right in front of the window so when you opened the window you just had this mountain of sand that just flowed into the office. I know this is not realistic, but we are tickling our brain with something the brain likes to see. So, here, again, sand, and this leads you to dry mouth. I think you start to understand what connection I am making here. First of all, sand. Then that means dry mouth.
Number two was the dental assistant’s chair. Now, I want to say Cavitron — I’m going to place a Cavitron — I’m not going to place it on top because that’s boring. What I’m going to do is I’m going to actually turn it on. It’s a huge Cavitron — and I don’t mean just to say Cavitron. Any power instruments. That could be a Piezo as well. But let’s imagine you are just actually cleaning the dental assistant’s chair with that Piezo or with that Cavitron, with that power instrument. The reason why I’m saying this is because I want you to imagine periodontal disease. You know, when a patient is a little bit more involved, there are some tools that we might use. And, here, I just wanted to think about power tools, which are linked to periodontal disease. So we cleaned that chair with that tool. That’s station number two.
Station number three is the actual patient chair. So the patient chair is usually gray, but I want you to imagine some streaks of red. So it’s like red blood, okay? But just a few specks — just a few streaks of blood I want you to have. This leads to you thinking the patient who has diabetes has less blood flow. All right. So that was our station number three.
Station number four is where we have our suction, right? Air syringe as well. Here, I am thinking there’s a mountain of bugs that come out of that just hose. Can you imagine that? This is very weird, but, again, our brain loves it when it’s weird. So imagine bugs, and this gives you the clue for infection, okay? The patient is more likely to have infection if they are affected by diabetes.
Our station number five was the overhead light. I want you to imagine laser coming out of that light, not just light, okay? Laser. And that laser zaps your skin. It just touches you skin, and that makes you feel a tingling sensation and also pain and also numbness. So some sort of sensation that is not normal, that’s what the laser will do. So, instead of having light, you’re thinking about the overhead light having laser. Laser gives you some sensation such as pain and tingling. That was station number five.
Our last station is the countertop. So the countertop, I want to turn this whole thing into a clock, a square clock. It can be a digital clock. Imagine just having this giant clock and that clock is actually behind. It’s not actually even the time we are right now. So, what I’m just trying to tell you by clock, it means delayed wound healing. A patient with diabetes is more likely to have delayed wound healing.
So let’s go through the stations again. Number one, that was the window, and that gives you the clue for sand. Sand gives you a clue for dry mouth. Number two was a dental assistant chair. You’re cleaning that with your power tools. Power tools give you a clue for periodontal disease. Number three was a patient chair. Did you see some blood in the patient’s chair? Okay. It’s not just gray and clean. That some blood is less blood flow. Number four is the hose, and from the hose come bugs. It’s a huge infection going on over there, so that gives you the idea that diabetes can cause infection. Number five is the overhead light that actually gives you this laser zap and gives you a weird sensation on your skin, which include tingling and pain. And then number six is this clock. This clock that tells you that the wound healing process is delayed.
One more time, again, think through your head. What was number one? What was number two? What was number three? Number four? Number five? And number six? If you went through your head without any mistake, congratulations. You finally memorized the six symptoms the patient might have if the patient has diabetes. So, if you had a patient now like that in your chair, you will be able to customize that treatment plan and help them better.
So I hope this was helpful for you today. This was WakeUp Memory technique. My name is Claire. I invite you to actually go to wakeupmemory.com and sign up for our blog. The reason is because I had a lot of requests from listeners saying, “Claire, do you have more? Because now my brain is tingling. I want to learn how to be more efficient in my life, how to stop forgetting things in my life and to be more efficient.”
So, if you are curious, just sign up for the blog. It’s completely free. All right. So I hope you feel a lot more powerful today. And let’s help a lot of patients out there and keep doing the awesome job that you are doing as a dental professional. Have a great day.
Michelle Strange: We hope you enjoyed this week’s TIPisode. Be sure to reach out to our guest experts and let them know how helpful their tips were. Follow A Tale of Two Hygienists on Facebook, Instagram, and head over to ataleoftwohygienists.com and subscribe to our newsletter. You can also email us at ataleoftwohygienists@gmail.com, and keep listening for more awesome content from your unofficial dental hygiene podcast.
