The Roles of a Dental Nurse

I was in my absolute element today. We had 2 cat dentals in and my shift was the dental anaesthetics nurse. This shift entails that I monitor the anaesthesia for my dental patients, however we had enough team members in that I was able to take radiographs, chart and scale & polish whilst someone else monitored the patients.

We had the beautiful Luna in who had been suffering with some oral pain, her owner reported that she was favouring one side of her mouth and had smelly breath. Full mouth radiographs were performed (I was so excited I got full mouth in 6 views! Took me about 10 minutes! This is what I aim for in all my patients as it reduces anaesthesia time). The radiographs were of diagnostic quality and it was then time to move on and chart the teeth. There was grade 2 Gingivitis around the pre-molars and molars on all quadrants, but canines and incisors were not affected. The descale was pretty quick as majority of the teeth were healthy with calculus build up mainly on molars.

It was then the vets turn to come in and remove 2 teeth that showed TR (tooth resorption) which can be very painful, hence the oral pain. The affected teeth were 307 and 407. After their removal the procedure was followed by polishing of the remaining teeth, this helps to further remove plaque deposits, before waking her up.