Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Fancy Pantsy Dentist

Yesterday, I had to go to the dentist. To my luck it was only a routine visit, but going to a dentist here (or at least to this particular one) is an experience by itself. Not only is it a really nice dentist, who explains his steps and shares his insights of your dental misery, but he has also a fancy pantsy practice. Now I neither have enough insight to judge whether all dental practices have such modern equipment nor do I know if this is an American thing, but for the purpose of this short story I will generalize my observations.

As many medical practices here, my dentist's practice is also localized in a kind of complex, comparable to the TV show Private Practice (only that the doctors don't look as fashionable). When you enter the waiting room, it actually looks a kind of old fashioned, with older furniture and the ubiquitous (to my eyes also somewhat old fashioned) carpet. But then when you pass that glass door to the actual  practice you will step into another, high-tech version of 21st century America, only the ubiquitous carpet tells you that you did not accidentally step into a time machine. 

Now I do not understand much about dental equipment but the lack of pain (during my last visits) confirms that everything must be the latest thing in the dentist world. But when I take a seat on the dentist chair I can watch - TV! Up at the ceiling hovers a big flat screen television and my dentist puts earphones onto my ears and hands me the remote control before he starts his procedures. 

Only one problem remains unsolved, how should one watch TV with the bright shining dentist lamp in ones eyes?

6 comments:

  1. I really like your observation on the carpet. :)
    In fact, dental office visit experience somehow always reminds me of that movie "Clockwork Orange"...
    Btw, I had great fun reading a passage from John Muir's memoir you loaned me.

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  2. haven't seen the movie, just a theatre play once, and I just remember a lot of dark chaos.

    Muir's writing just makes me wanting to go outdoors. glad you enjoy the book...

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  3. thanks to the anonymous grammarian....

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  4. amazing. i want such a dentist too. headphones....
    i am still getting sickish when i think of the removal of my wisdom teeth. mostly it was the sound that was so horrible!
    then... i had a cavity and my dentist filled it, but didnt do it right so after months of pain i went back and he had to open it all up again and start over. and again; the sound, the horror of it all....
    as a kid, i was never afraid of the dentist, but all of the above, which happened just before the end of my PhD made me extremely frightened of the dentist as an almost 30-year-old... :( i still have to go here, but i am afraid they find another cavity....

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  5. I also get more afraid of dentists with time, although I did not have such a bad experience so far....

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  6. now you have to go each week if you are addicted to some television show ahahahaha

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