I can't wait to go back to the dental office. I think out of everything I've seen so far, extractions are my favorite. My dentist won't be there all next week because he's opening his own practice. When he told me that, my face went from :D to :[ because I'm not sure how far away his practice will be... but I do believe it's further than the current place he's at (hence why the :[ is appropriate).
I don't want to sound mean, but I've noticed that compared to women, when men are getting shot up and numbed, they seem to have a lower pain tolerance. Maybe it's just me, but I never saw a woman whine or cry out or groan, but I've seen men whine, wince, tremble, cry out and even gag pretty hardcore.
I never asked, but I've been wondering what dentists do if they have a terrible patient, one that kicks and screams and cries (probably a younger patient, or something). Do they calm them down? Do they reschedule them? Do they refer them to someone else? I'll have to ask when I'm back.
I realized how what the patient wants comes first though, even if it's not what they might need. One patient had a few teeth left, and they were all rotten. One even fell out right there when they opened their mouth. The patient didn't want any of them pulled even though they were moving around pretty badly. So the dentist fixed them all temporarily but the patient was ignoring what the dentist was telling them about their teeth; they kept insisting they needed to keep their teeth and didn't need anything done with them, all while ignoring the fact that the fix was a temporary one.
Ah, I'm so excited... classes coming up, more shadowing... and then going to Florida for 20 days.
About Me
- Mima
- My name is Mima, I'm currently a university student working my way up to dental school. I was born in Gaza (Israel/Palestine; same place, different name) and moved to the U.S. After highschool and two years of Graphic design, I moved to Egypt for a short while with intentions of staying there for college. Eventually, life situations directed me back West.
1 comment:
Your shadowing sounds fun, and I definitely agree with you about men having a lower tolerance for pain. It was always so funny to see this big, tattoo-covered, burly men about to break into tears over a few shots. Mima, you must live fairly close to me if you can drive "up" to Ann Arbor in 45 min, assuming up means north. We've been doing the same thing, cutting back on little trips, because of the gas prices. I'm kind of glad prices are going up, though. Maybe it will help draw people closer together and back into the cities.
You have a lot of interesting things in your blog. I read that you were trying to contact some of your Native American family; have you ever been out to any reservations? We were out in Arizona last fall and drove through the Navajo Nation. It's like another world almost, I can't really describe my feelings seeing that land. It was kind of similar to the feeling I got when I went to the West Bank as part of a trip to Israel a few years ago-beauty, emptiness, cultural richness, desolation, and a sense of going back in time. It's interesting that you are connected to two groups of people who are so different yet share so much.
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