Dentists and Dental 'Selfies'

Who is your dentist?

I’ve always wanted to direct this question at my dentist, but never did because we have a professional relationship, so I can’t ask him such a personal question.

I don’t envy dentists because they cannot help themselves: clean their own teeth, take them out or insert fillings.  Most businessmen can use work related tools or products for personal use.

For example, painters can use the paint to paint the barn or garage; cab drivers can drive themselves to weddings or baseball games; from what I’ve seen in movies, drug dealers can also sniff their product or inject themselves with it; window cleaners can clean their windows at home and doctors don’t need prescriptions because they know exactly what to buy in a pharmacy/chemist.

Not dentists.  Can you imagine dentists opening their mouths wide, tapping teeth to find the bad ones?  How would they do it?  With two-way mirrors?  How about all those sharp instruments?  Can they use them without the help of dental assistants?

Dentists definitely cannot do themselves.   Taking X-Rays is out of the question.  They have this thing that they put in our mouths and ask us to bite.   Is it foam core?  I’ve never seen it because my eyes are always closed.  Once it is in place, they click the camera. 

Dentists offer many other services that do not interest me.  All I know that I don’t like visiting their rooms, sitting on tilted chairs and being asked to open my poor mouth wide.

Dentists will never know the trauma, until they try a ‘dental selfie’, do those procedures on themselves.