Exhibit: Dental Radiograph Processing Errors

Benchmark: Academic

Skills: Top Four Career Center Pieces of Work

 

 

         “If the hand read between the discharge-tube and the screen, the darker shadow of the bones is seen within the slightly dark shadow-image of the hand itself… for brevity’s sake shall I use the expression ‘rays’ and to distinguish them from others of this name I shall call them ‘X-rays’.” On November 8th, 1895 a physicist named Wilhelm Roentgen, by taking an image of his wife’s hand, discovered that electromagnetic radiation can create an image. Radiography is an imaging technique that uses this form of radiation to view internal structures such as teeth. This specific discovery earned Roentgen the first Nobel Prize. In dentistry, being able to take, process, and interpret radiographs is a vital step of diagnosing and treating patients. As a career center student, I can perform these tasks. Part of interpreting radiographs is being able to also determine when a film has a processing error. In my Dental Occupations class, I recently took a quiz on processing errors.

       These errors included underexposure, dark-film images, streaks, backwards films, clear films, distortion, overlapping, cone cutting, foreshortening, and also elongation. In this specific quiz I was required to identify the radiograph error and also to name the processing error. To be seventeen and to have this knowledge of radiology that isn’t taught until college is a major step ahead in my career as a dentist. Going to the career center has given me the competitive edge and knowledge in my chosen career. Every career in the field of dentistry requires knowledge of radiology. Dental radiology is important in detecting tumors in the mouth, dental caries, fractures, calculus/tartar, impacted teeth, abscesses, and many other conditions.

      This specific quiz was chosen because being able to comprehend what you’re looking at and to determine a treatment plan is a dentist’s job. As a college student this assignment will help me during dental hygiene school because part of a dental hygienist job is taking, and processing radiograph. As a dentist, in order to diagnose your patients you must know what different malformations of the mouth look in order to detect them and you must also be able to develop a treatment plan for your patient.