Thinking about dental loupes…

We’re starting our series of dental student purchases: first up is perhaps the most important dental tool- loupes. We also need to buy a stethoscope. (Does your dentist measure your heart pressure? It’s important to make sure you’re stable enough for dental treatments.)

At our first Dental Simulations rotation, we drilled without loupes. The first time I worked with dental loupes, I couldn’t believe how easier it was to see what I was doing.

overworked dental student meme

Last semester we had Lunch & Learn’s with three dental loupe companies that visited our dental school: Designs for Vision, Q Optics, and Orascoptic. I’ve tried out all of them during my rotations and I am not sure what I should get- yet. But couple of thoughts:

1) I’m going to wear contacts with my loupes 24/7, so the prescription lenses/wearing with glasses won’t be an issue for me.

2) I have a standard Asian face profile! I have really high cheekbones so some frames touch my cheekbones and leave an impression after a while. For others, the frames hit my cheekbones when I’m smiling.  (Solution: be a scary never-smiling dentist?)

3) I need a light frame/loupes/light combo. When I wear glasses, at the end of the day my nose bridge hurts a lot. Since I’ll be wearing these dental loupes all day errday, I need something that is light. I also need something that distributes most of the weight to my ear and doesn’t cause so much discomfort.

We’ll need these loupes when we start General Restorative Dentistry in the next few weeks. GRD lab seems to be where most dental students spend their lives! I’ve been told this is the real dungeon. But first! I need to check out the different loupes and make my decision soon. Good thing that our company representative have been coming by Penn every week.

Pretty soon I’ll need scrubs for clinic. And more professional clothes. Then business cards with appointment memos on the back. Then a dental practice? Okay little steps…