From Toothaches to Trauma: A Day in The Life in MFU

So the 12 weeks honestly went by in a blur. I must have extracted enough teeth to fund the Tooth Fairy's early retirement. Somewhere along the way, I got over my fear of giving nerve blocks—turns out, nothing builds confidence like using actual patients as test subjects (with supervision, of course). It was also oddly satisfying to finally put all those things I learned in school into real-life action.

At first, I shadowed another house officer. He walked me through the basics—what to do when you’re on call, how to document, how to not look completely lost when trauma hits. He even took me to the trauma building where we met a patient who needed our attention. A child had been brought in with a laceration on his forehead after an accident. I assisted with suturing. Just a regular day.

When a patient comes into emergency with a maxillofacial injury, it’s the house officer who’s first on call—regardless of the time. So yes, even if it's 3 a.m. and you're deep into your third REM cycle, you're expected to snap awake and get to work. The job? Take a full history, do our examinations, assess for sutures, do dressings, or send for a CT scan. Some patients couldn’t even afford basic suturing materials, so if we had any of our own, we’d just use that and keep it moving. Public healthcare, am I right?

I followed him to radiology next, where we picked up CT scans for another trauma patient. That’s when I realized I was starting to get the hang of things. Everything was clicking.

Apparently, we were in peak "space infection season." Patients with facial swellings were coming in left, right, and center. Even Ludwig’s Angina—a condition I only vaguely remembered from a textbook—was suddenly very real. In those cases, we’d prescribe meds and administer the IVs ourselves.

Let me pull back the curtain for a second: I didn’t know how to insert a cannula for the first eight weeks. I always got lucky—either the patient already had one or someone else was around to do it. But eventually, I got found out. One of the doctors made us practice on each other. That’s when I learned two hard truths: (1) veins are not as easy to find as TV shows make them seem (Turns out finding veins is harder than extracting teeth. Who knew?), and (2) dental school definitely skipped this part and said, “Figure it out.” But after a few failed jabs (and bruised egos), I finally got it. The first time I did it correctly on a real patient with no drama? That first successful stick where blood actually flowed instead of tissuing. I walked away feeling ten feet tall—with absolutely no one around to witness my moment of glory, of course.

Aside from that, we were also in charge of daily dressing changes and draining pus from infections. That became second nature after a while.

Oh, and pediatric patients? They deserve their own training manual. Sometimes they cry for absolutely no reason. Other times, you have to physically hold them down just to get a tooth out. Cute? Yes. Easy? Not even a little.

Lessons Carved in Bone

1. Pediatrics = Psychological Warfare

   • The art of distracting a screaming child while secretly being one poke away from crying yourself

   • That moment you realize you've become the villain holding them down

2. Pus Has a Personality

   • Ludwig's angina drainage: the gift that keeps on giving (and smelling)

   • Daily dressing changes that make you question your life choices

3. The MFU Mindset

• "Good enough" medicine when resources are scarce

• The quiet pride in handling what would make civilians faint

Twelve weeks later, I left MFU with new skills, stronger nerves, and a slightly darker sense of humor. I learned how to extract teeth with confidence, how to find a vein (most of the time), and how to hold my breath for impressively long stretches of time.

This rotation didn’t just teach me how to extract teeth or drain abscesses—it taught me how to think on my feet when the monitors beep, how to improvise when supplies run out, and how to persist when every muscle screams for rest.

The real lessons came coated in blood and pus:

• Competence isn’t given—it’s grabbed in midnight traumas and missed IV sticks

• Compassion isn’t soft—it’s solid, like holding down a screaming child gently but firmly

• Healthcare isn’t perfect—it’s persistent, doing what we can with what we have

I arrived a student. I leave something else—not quite a veteran, but no longer prey.

MFU didn’t just train my hands. It rewired my instincts. And though I’ll never miss the smell of infected bone, I’ll always carry the grit this place etched into me.

The MFU stamp stays with you—in the way you flinch at 3am phone calls, in the way you spot Ludwig’s before the patient speaks, in the way you now trust your hands when they’re covered in someone else’s blood.

It was chaotic, intense, and definitely not always pretty. But somehow, I survived. And let me be clear: once was more than enough.