A Technician Goes to Dental School - Year Two: the Feared Year of Dental School

I'm no longer the lowest on the totem pole! A new class of freshman has started school and I'm now a sophomore. As I transitioned to my second year, I felt like a battle-weary soldier watching replacements fresh out of boot camp joining the fray--but wearing new scrubs instead of camouflage.

Looking back at my first year of dental school, I see that my lab background helped me greatly. Dentistry was a second language for me; I was rarely lost in my classes. On the other hand, I knew almost nothing about operative materials and preparation techniques. With more knowledge about the clinical aspect of dentistry, I feel like a much better technician.

At the end of my freshman year, an unusual thing happened. As class president, I serve on the dental school's curriculum committee and, since the dental anatomy professor had recently retired, I was asked to create an outline for a new dental anatomy curriculum. In...