My tooth was hurting, so I went to the dentist. Something I haven’t done in years. I did not like what she had to say.
Okay, I admit it. I grind my teeth and a lot of damage has been done, exactly as the dentist described. That’s not what I found inappropriate.
She went on to say that my flattened teeth made my face look older. I sniffed. I said I didn’t care about how I looked.
She then went on to say, what if my bosses at work saw how old I looked and decided maybe I couldn’t handle my job anymore?
What…the…fuck?
I wish I had the temerity to say that then I would sue their fucking asses off, but that remark didn’t occur to me.
Other questionable comments included that European people had horrible teeth because their single payer system made it impossible for them to get dental work done. She said this when I mentioned that an oral surgeon demanding full payment at time of service leaving my dental insurance to reimburse me later would cause me almost insurmountable hardship if not an impossibility.
“Just make it happen,” she told me about my impending full payment extraction. Ah yes, sage advice from a medical professional. Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced my magic money wand.
Stewing about her comments is causing me more misery than my tooth. I will not be returning.
Years ago I had a dentist who was inappropriate in a different way - he just acted so goofy it called his competence into question. He’d make up totally nonsensical doggerel on the spot and sing it rather tunelessly - “Here is Carol, she’s not in a barrel, her shirt is red, I have a head, my gosh it’s noon, where is the moon, look over here and have no fear…”
The thing that made it utterly terrifying is that all this was going on while my mouth was propped open and he was filling a cavity, so I couldn’t move or respond.
As I was settling the bill on my way out, I thought about saying to the receptionist, “you know, your boss has a screw loose. He’s going to lose patients right and left if he keeps up this behavior.” But then I figured there is no way they didn’t already know that.
Something must have been terribly wrong, as I’d gone to the same dentist in the past and he was perfectly normal.
Cats, that is disgusting coming from a dentist. I suspect she was trying to get you to pay for more work than you needed.
Last place I went, the head dentist would stand in the hallway glaring at patients.
Once had a dentist missing part of a finger. I discovered that they cannot understand me when I curse them with my mouth full of hands and tools. “Did someone bite off your !@#$ finger?”
Guilt trips by a dentist is a good way to lose patients, aka customers. I know they need to suggest you do things, like floss, but not by saying “your gums sure are bleeding a lot…when was the last time you flossed? Your dental hygiene is terrible!”
Not that I’ve heard that. My dental hygiene is great I have had a coworker and a close relative both leave dentists due to their lectures. I left a dentist because he was slower as hell. Why does a cleaning take an hour? And why is the dentist doing it?
Hard sell dressed up as ‘motivating’ you. I wouldn’t trust them to not be upselling you to bone grafts. The OS is surely going to do the same, I’d guess.
Find another dentist, someone you can trust, then go with who they recommend.
My sympathies. I’ve found in my 70 years that medical people often have a shocking lack of diplomacy.
I had an odd experience with a dentist last week. Not harmful, just odd. I had a terrible toothache and thought I might have a sinus infection. The practice I go to has two offices, but the one I usually use was closed, so I called the other one, which thankfully took me in later that day. While waiting, I noticed Jon Voight’s face scowling up at me from the cover of a magazine, “Newsmax,” an avowed right-wing periodical. There must have been 5 or 6 issues of “Newsmax” on the table, but nothing else. I found it odd that a dental office that caters to a lot of different people would have nothing but conservative political magazines in the waiting room. Just because I felt like it and I was in pain, I turned them all over.
Small businessmen, which is exactly what many doctors & dentists are, can certainly persuade themselves to fall down the RW propaganda rabbit hole. “Job Creators Good; Taxes and Regulations Bad” is about as deep as many small biz types think. Having an advanced degree in a science/technical specialty like MD or DDS is no sure-fire defense against that. Or against being a raging racist.
And yes, I walk out of small businesses fairly regularly when their politics or religion is both a) on display and b) offensive to my idea of civilization. Would that more of us do the same.
I won’t know you’re an, e.g., Trumpist until you tell me. But you already got your last dollar from me the instant you do.
My ophthalmologist has nothing but smarmy Christian reading material in his waiting room. I don’t like it, but he seems competent and never mentions anything religious in person, so I do my best to overlook it.
The doctor who did my cataract surgery put hands on me and prayed aloud that God would “guide his hands”. Yeah, isn’t that what Eyeball University is supposed to teach you? At least he asked permission first. I would have said ‘no’, but this is a guy who was going to be messing with my eyes and I didn’t want to piss him off.
They want your money, they care not a bit about your health. Do have a 401k that can be robbed, that you have saved all your life for retirement? They want it. Do you own a home and have any equity in that home? They want it.
They are shaming you into spending the money because that is how health care works in the US. You should have planned ahead and known that you would need a million dollars to retire on, because you don’t really need a million dollars, half of that money you saved will go to health care expenses.
I lost my teeth a few years ago. The optimal solution was 4 implants in the top, 4 in the bottom, and a new set of teeth screwed into them. Quote was $57,000 as in 57 thousand dollars. They were really trying to get me to find thde money somewhere. I have dentures now.
That said, even the best do make mistakes. If there is some being or ritual out there that could make mistakes less likely, I would understand wanting to utilize that.
But, at the same time, that’s not a reassuring take from the doctor, unless you happen to share their beliefs. I get why he would think asking would be sufficient to mitigate that, but, as you say, there’s some pressure in not wanting to upset the guy in that position.
It seems to me that, if he wants to pray, it would be better to just pray silently. I can’t think of anything in the Bible that would necessitate the laying on of hands for the type of prayer he gave. And, even if it did, he was really praying for himself, for God to guide his hand.
So that was a long way of saying that, even as a Christian myself who might even pray that God would guide my doctor’s hands, I agree that was not the way to do things. I could see a certain type of Christian being reassured by it, but there’s no reason to make others uncomfortable.
My experience with dentists is that about half are good, trusted people trying to help their clients. The other half are somewhere between a used car salesman and plastic surgeon. It’s a real problem with the industry as they don’t draw a line between medically needed procedures and cosmetic. People might only go to a few dentists in their life and don’t really talk about it with others. It’s hard for the customers to know the appropriate standard of care.
There are enough good ones out there, so don’t settle for a crappy one.
I admit to being really torn here. My tooth did hurt last week, but now it seems fine. It’s not infected. It’s sitting next to another gap in my jaw, and pulling it will definitely affect my ability to chew. I know the tooth will have to come out eventually, but right now? I really just want to leave it there until an extraction becomes an absolute necessity.
I think I should have it looked at by this surgeon, but I don’t like the idea of being pressured into an extraction if this tooth could still last for maybe a little while.
I have had a coworker and a close relative both leave dentists due to their lectures. I left a dentist because he was slower as hell. Why does a cleaning take an hour? And why is the dentist doing it?