No Stupid Questions

The first dentist I ever went to was great. He was good with kids and adults and did his job. He was realistic about kids being kids and gave us the tools and information to make sure our teeth were healthy. I had him all the way through my braces and into high school. He then retired.

My next dentist was a horrendous, preachy, asshole who loved to tell all of his patients what was wrong with them, make people feel bad for their decisions to drink soda, and surmised that we were all eating too much junk food (which he wouldn't really elaborate on when asked). My diet wasn't perfect, but I had mostly home cooked meals with steamed vegetables, along with the occasional fast food lunch with friends.

He was also Mormon and I know a lot of Mormons love to get on their high horse and take pleasure in being petty, insufferable, assholes. I haven't read their batshit book (albeit, most in that genre are similarly zany and harebrained), but there must be some discussion on how to be a bad neighbor to everyone you meet in there based on their predilictions for unfair/unwarranted judgement and exclusion. He only hired other Mormon dentists to his practice and all the dental assistants were similarly preachy and religious.

I dreaded going to the dentist for mostly social reasons and didn't want to be shamed by being told that I had better take care of my teeth (which were fine) because my parents had spent a lot of money on my braces (and it wasn't that much money because the first dentist wasn't a sneering profiteer).

I ditched that asshole once I went to college and have had a couple dentists since then who were fine, did their job and didn't give me a bunch of flak for not flossing after every meal like a fucking psychopath.

Fundamentally, I think the issue with dentists is that when you get a bad one, they make you feel bad, which is the absolute antithesis of healthcare.

Additionally, because of the arbitrary and asinine distinction in the US between oral care and basically the rest of the body, dentistry is seen as cosmetic and unnecessary, often allowing or obligating dentists to charge an arm and a leg for most of their services. We all know how prices ratchet up from initial obligations to cover higher costs into "fuck the consumer, they were fine paying the higher prices anyway so let's increase our profit margin".

Compound that with the ridiculous price setting and insurance rackets baked into anything close to the health sector, and you have a lot of frustration even before patients get into the chair.

If you're not a dentist who will practice compassionate care, at least be one who just shuts the fuck up and does their job. Of course let the patient know what's going on in their mouth and how they can better take care of themselves or treat something they're dealing with, but chill the fuck out with the fire and brimstone shit about missing a cleaning or not flossing all the time.

Healthcare is all about bedside manner. If you don't have it, you're not a good provider and your business can and should suffer (the fact that our healthcare structures are businesses and profit motivated is fundamentally opposed to effective care, anyway, but that's the subject of another essay).

Edit: Cleaned it up a bit and added that my first dentist retired.

He likely does not recall every time he has mentioned this to you.

That's weird. I've never ever had any dentist try to sell me anything except for coming up with solutions to problems I have with my teeth. Never up selling or anything

Ya, going to the dentist can feel like seeing a car mechanic. You come in for one thing and then they try to sell you tons of other stuff that you are not even sure you need. It can feel really scummy. There are good ones but just like car mechanics they usually own their own business. If you go to the jiffy lube of dentists they will try to sell you other shit and may make the issue you went in for worse.

You go in to a medical professional for health care and advice and they try and sell to you.

You obviously were not at my last ED visit.

Yep. My dentists office has the greatest people and the best service of any business I can think of. They’ve never done me wrong in any way. And I still hate going there. It’s the fucking teeth scraper. I can’t handle the fucking pick work.

Wait, you dont trust quackosnappers???

What are you, an anti-dentite!?

Went to a new dentist once and transferred my X-rays from my previous dentist. He told me I had 6 cavities.

Wow, don’t you think my previous dentist would’ve told me I had 6 cavities if I really did when he took the X-ray?

Went to another dentist for second opinion and never heard anything about 6 cavities again.

I’ve now moved on to another dentist and still nothing about 6 cavities.

However, I notice all dentists are always looking to add on extra treatments for deep cleaning or extra fluoride or whatever. It’s all about money.

You can’t trust dentists because they’re all conflicted by the business component of their work. This makes many of them scammers willing to damage your teeth to make a buck. You gotta look out for yourself, get second and third opinions and don’t be afraid to drop someone.

There is a degree of subjective judgement involved in when a cavity gets bad enough to need a filling, but yeah, that room for judgement is also room for unscrupulous dentists to exploit patients for maximum payout.

Because doctors hundreds of years ago decided dentistry was quack science and not worthy of being in their ranks. That continues today with dental school and insurance often being separate

Which is so silly when you think about it: “this tire expert isn’t a REAL mechanic”. Okay…and?? We need both.

I'm now imagining a grown man with a child's tricycle hooked up to a drill, pedalling his heart out and trying to keep his arm still enough to get it in a patient's mouth.