This project has been much much more stress than I anticipated! I made it way more difficult than it needed to be.. But it's done!!!! The good thing about doing this is that I find it really interesting and it was so much fun to get my surveys in the mail and read different doctors opinions. Although I generally disagree with 90% of the opinions, it was still interesting to read.
For the most part, the dentists agreed that Rx toothpaste is a good method of prevention and is helpful before people have rampant caries. Yet, they did not want to put a very high percentage of their patients on the paste. I just don't get it. If we know it can help, it's easy to use, why wait till MAJOR, permanent damage has been done. Thats not prevention. Anyhow, I find my results very interesting and would be happy to share them with the junior or senior class to complete this course.
The steps I took to compile this data are as follows:
Gather information, write survey, called and talked to my brother and uncle to make sure they didn't think it sounded accusational, emailed survey for faculty approval, go to staples and buy paper and envelopes, post office to buy stamps, stamp and address 35 envelopes to myself, go to copy center and make copies, grocery store to buy candy canes.
10 hrs.
Hand delivered 35 surveys. Drove to Providence, Logan, N. Logan, Smithfield, Righmond, Hyrum, Nibley. Three docors were hanging around the office when I delivered the surveys and brought me back to talk about what they think and who needs Rx toothpaste. Talked to each 15-30 min.
9 hrs.
Read Surveys as they were mailed back.
2 hrs.
Analyze data and count up results.
6 hrs.
Supprisingly, I don't remember anything about excell. I should have gone to that refressher class we had. I spent hours trying to figure out how to make a table on my own, hours trying to learn from the Microsoft tutorial discs, went to my husband's neice's house to have her show me. She couldn't figure it out, finally, sorta made up my own tables in the most difficult way. So this took a long time and was super frustrating!
9 hrs.
Before making my PPT, I called and talked to my friend who works at the health department. She works in the community wellness dept, and they are given loads of money to increase population wellness. Yet, they don't do anything related to Rx toothpaste. Hello prevention saves money, it's cheaper than drill and fill. Talk about stimulating the economy. I also talked to someone at the hospital my mom works at. My mom is a recovery nurse and estimates they would see around 15 medicaid children in the O.R. for they dental work each week. Due to Ins. changing, these doctors can no longer afford to see these children in the hospital. We talked about how much money it would save the govt. to put these children (who can use it safely) on Rx toothpaste and help prevent these really sad cases of rampant caries.
2 hrs.
Made a PPT. This required to redo some of my tables because not all the info would fit in a ppt slide. This also simple task proved to be very challenging. I also added some of my opinions.
6 hrs.
So yes, now I think I'm done and would love to share my findings with classmates and hopefully influence them to recomend Rx toothpaste to at least their patients with active caries. (despite my results, I don't think this is being done). I would also like to hear a good answer to why if patients can use and safely store Rx toothpaste, why they would not want everyone to use it.
The End!!! :)
