4TH MELAKA DENTAL CONFERENCE & TRADE EXHIBITION

IT’S NOVEMBER ALREADY?!

I’m back at home now for the deepavali holidays. Today will be the last day before I head back to Malacca. I thought maybe I should do some write up on some past events that happened few months back. There’s much to share and I’m just down right lazy to update. I know, shame on me.

Alright, this post will be a summary of my 2 days “volunteering” work at the 4^th Melaka Dental Conference which took place last October. It was held for 3 days but I only attended the last 2 days. The event was organized by the southern zone MDA and our faculty. 

Dr.Dhana asked for a group of us, from batch 2 to help out in the registration table. (Our senior insisted that we do the job. Sigh.) A total of 12 of us were on the job. On the 2^nd day, I was stationed at Mahkota Medical Center for the dental nurse talks. The other team was at Hatten Hotel. We arrive at the hospital around 7.45 am. I thought that at least someone would brief us on what to do, but we ended up teaching ourselves what do to. Vino and Chien Ying handled the registration while I just usher the people in the room. After some time, there were two other doctors who turned up for a while to handle the payment. (They weren’t friendly at all. Seriously) Syasya and Silk were the MCs for the day. The talks were actually fine. We did gain a lot of information from them. Dr. Naresh was there to supervise us. Lunch was provided by the hospital cafeteria. It was quite yummy. The day ended with dental nurses all over the registration tables, grabbing their certificates and demanding for their resists which we’re not responsible for. Imagine the chaos then. It was really all in a mess as some certs when missing and the head staff nurses all shaking their heads over their staffs’ behavior. There were also a lot of spelling mistakes in the certs which we couldn’t do anything to correct it. Hopelessly, we just told them to get to Hatten hotel to get it reprinted there. And oh, we did come across many who wanted to go back early, asking for their certs as early as lunch time. I didn’t know what was the fuss of a piece of paper until the last day of the conference. Besides that, there were also limited amount of goodie bag from Sensodyne and some nurses did not get it. We were even called “lousy” by some just because of that. Oh well, what could we do, we tried our best to make things less disastrous and mind you, there weren’t anyone to guide us.

The next day, all twelve of us were at Hatten Hotel.  We took turns to take care of the registration table. The talks again were pretty good. Outside of the conference hall, there were many booth set up by many dental suppliers. We got many samples of different products and even had hands on using the laser on an apple. I also bought some cute tooth-shaped case dental flosses. Lunch was scrumptious and we can really see everyone enjoying it. We started handing out the certs after lunch though there were still talks going on. At least it was not chaotic as the day before. We can see all the doctors were so glad to get hold of the certs and leaving happily after that. Hardly anyone was left during the last talk.

From this, I get to see the true reality of a dental conference. Most dentist, staff nurse and DSA just come for the certificate which holds points. I was told that these points are important for them to renew their license with MDC. (Correct me if I’m wrong) That’s why they kept asking about it throughout the conference.     

All I can say, we were exhausted at the end of the day. So much for experiencing a dental conference. 

Ps: Sorry for all words and no photos, we were just too busy to snap any. 

Phase II Orientation

6 weeks of holiday went pass me just like that. Now am back to my life as a dental student. The only difference: I am back in Malaysia for good.

I have written the draft for this post for quite some time now. I was so reluctant to continue it especially when my study load was piling up. However, something happened today that made me want to complete this post.

Let’s start from the registration letter. It came really late; 2 weeks before the registration day. Only three days’ notice was given to pay up and sent back the reply slip. I was oversea at the period of time but still manage get back to them. Some other batch mates of mine weren’t so lucky and they had a hard time in getting a hostel room. I really don’t understand why everything has to be so last minute. I think they can really improve on that.

On the first day, we were given till noon to register ourselves. There were registration booths set up in the cafeteria. After handing in the registration forms, we proceeded to collect our hostel keys. A hostel checklist and complain form were given to us along with the keys. We were free to anything after that. The orientation started after lunch that day.

To be honest, it was the longest orientation I ever had. The whole thing lasted for 2 weeks. (For medical student, it was only for a week.) It runs the whole day, 8am-5pm. We joined the MBBS student for the 1^st week. For most of the time, we have to sit in the lecture hall and listen to talks from many people. There were staffs from the library, clinical skills lab, IT department, psychology department, hostel wardens, hospital Pengarahs’ and people from medical mobile app company. It was really hard to stay awake through some of the talks especially those just before lunch. Funny that they choose to put the hostel briefing the last of all talks when we have been staying in comfortably for a few days. There was also a campus tour. It was conducted on the first day. It wasn’t really what I expected it to be. First they brought us around the main office building, library, academic block II and lastly the sports complex. It wasn’t organized well as there was only one person who was in charged to bring all 200+ students around the campus. We at the back hardly could hear anything. I think our own seniors should have been there to at least guide us especially in regards to our own dental building. I hope this will change next year.  At least they should have given us some kind of map like how the Manipal management did.

For the second week, we were slowly introduced to various fields in dentistry. I think our batch shocked the lecturers. Back in Manipal, we were known to be a quiet group; unlike our senior or junior batch. They were trying so so so hard to get us talking. Till now, the condition is still the same. In the first meeting with all the dental staff, the dean asked us to introduced ourselves one by one and share a little on our expectation from the faculty as well as the field we would want to specialize in the future. We were then introduced to our lecturers and the supporting staffs. He also briefly touched on the exams and academic layout for the next 3 years. On the subsequent days, we were shown around the clinics and labs. The OPD (outpatient department), reception, finance department and radiology department are stationed on the ground floor. As for our clinics, it is on the 3^rd floor. For now, we all share a dental unit with another partner. Our partners were decided by the management.  There is a surgery theater on the 1^st floor while our labs are all on the 7^th floor. We have classes mostly in the 9^th floor. On the same week itself, we were also briefed on the various rules and regulations of the clinic as well as sterilization of our instruments. We were asked to record the serial numbers of our handpieces and dental unit. I hated the introduction to “Gloco” the most. Gloco is a computer system where we key in our patient’s information and store it for future reference. Currently, we are all divided into 6 groups, each consist of 8-9 students. Each group will be posted to a different specialist clinic for a few weeks to learn the skills in regard to that field. As for our first general dental clinic session that week, we were all taught about taking E&D (Examination and diagnosis). A lecture on infection control was also held for us. We were also introduced to our yellow operation gowns which we will be wearing for the next 3 years.

There is also an assembly held on the first Monday of every month unless it crashes with our holiday. All batches will gather together in the hall like how we use to do in our national schools. Awards and announcements will be given out at that time. New lecturers and staffs will be introduced then.

I think that’s about it on the orientation. I don’t know about most of you, but being back just make me miss Manipal even more.