Incident Report

Those of you who read my blog often might remember the posting I made a few weeks ago about my minor injuries obtained during lab time at dental school. I knew that I wasn't alone in my misfortune (since one of our teachers brazenly announced on the first day of school that every year one student from his lab has to go to the emergency room for a deep cut sustained during class time).

With statistics like those being thrown at me, I was determined not to injure myself in the lab because it hurts and is avoidable if you are paying attention (and because our health insurance stinks). Nevertheless, I've already gotten quite a number of small cuts and bruises from various activities in the lab when instruments or drills got away from me.

One day, as I was lamenting the loss of several layers of skin off my hand from the time last week that I burned my hand with an alcohol torch, some of my classmates began to join in with their own stories of blood and gore. My friend Amy showed me a badly blistered finger that had been scorched when she dropped molten plastic compound on it. My favorite story of lab misfortune came from my friend, Steven. Steven said, "Well, I wasn't going to tell people this, but since we're all sharing--last week I drilled through my scrubs and into my leg with a 169L bur."

(For those of you who are much less dorky than I am, let me show you what a 169L bur is...) OUCH! That does not feel good. (Not to mention, a good pair of scrubs were lost in this bur v. Steven exchange!)

I'm thinking of posting one of those signs in our lab that tracks how many accident-free days go by, but I'm afraid it would perpetually be stuck at 0.Dental school...the most dangerous place on Earth???

Who would have thought?