Students today have so much equipment at their disposal.
From school textbooks and notepads to clinical wear and tools, our backpacks
are filled to the brim with materials just to get through the daily grind. Here
are several of the essentials that every dental student needs in their
backpack:
- Laptop – With education becoming more
and more digitized—downloadable lecture PDFs, web-accessed schedule updates,
online teacher evaluations, and even computerized midterms and finals (ExamSoft,
anyone?)—students absolutely need their laptops on them at all times
- Noise Cancelling Headphones – Tune out
all that snoring from the library cubicle next to yours. Rewatching lectures
takes the utmost focus and no distractions shall be allowed!
- Anatomy Coloring Book and Colored Pens – Adult coloring books are all the rage nowadays, and they say it is a great stress
relief. Does color-coding the medial pterygoid muscle from the lateral
pterygoid muscle count?
- Safety Goggles – You never know when
you will need some emergency PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), particularly
if you like to participate in community outreach events at local schools or
health fairs. You will thank yourself later when you don’t need to run back to
school to get protective eyewear.
- Clear Gum Tooth Model – The typical
dental student starts D1 year knowing that there are incisors and molars. But
alas, there is so much more to know. Triangular fossa, distal pit, mesial
buccal groove, root concavities, bifurcations and trifurcations, the Cusp of
Carabelli… the list goes on. If you have your Tooth Model on hand, you will no
longer think to yourself, “What does the maxillary first premolar look like
again?”
- Sim Lab Bench Keys – These are the keys
to all of your simulation lab equipment (e.g., your restorative cassette, your
loupes, your thousand-dollar drill). Forget these and you can kiss goodbye your
sign-offs for the day!
- Healthy Snacks – Fresh fruits, nuts,
vegetable chips… Something to get you through a day of classes and studying but
doesn’t mess with your Stephen’s Curve too drastically.
- Water Canteen – To be filled with
0.7ppm of fluoridated water, of course!
- Toothbrush, Toothpaste, and Floss –
Because we all brush three times a day, right? Plus, it’s always nice to have
some floss handy, particularly when your classmate comes up and whispers, “You
have some leftover lunch between #9 and #10.”
- Invisalign Aligners – Your upperclassmen need more orthodontic cases and you
want to fix that diastema. Win-win!
- Comfy Sneakers – Great for that
one-hour gym break between classes. Also great for when you forgot to wear
close-toed shoes to clinic…again.
- Hand Sanitizer – Our nitrile gloves rip
sometimes. Enough said!
See associated image here: http://i66.tinypic.com/akcplj.jpg
These are just some of the things that can be found in my
backpack before I head out to class and clinic each day. Did I miss anything? What
additional items are in your backpack?