Why Did Dentistry Change?
Written by Confusion support on June 23, 2008 – 12:31 pm -When did dentistry change? When I was kid the dentist was known as a neighborhood doctor, in an old house, who poked around, very little, at your teeth with that sharp instrument and then brushed your teeth with mostly bad tasting gritty toothpaste (supposedly it was mint, but it still tasted bad). You rinsed your mouth with a Dixie-type cup, into a cone shaped suction device. If you had a cavity, he filled it right then and there many times. You then went home with your character eraser or some other prize, and a new tooth brush. To think I used to dread the dentist.
Some years later, dental hygienists, who are always women (has anyone out there ever had a man?) began doing a 1/4 to 1/2 the work and the dentist the rest. Previously the hygienist was only someone you saw at school, who taught you how to brush correctly. Dentist also began creeping up at more commercial places like the strip mall.
Today, the majority of dentists are in with a group of dentists and are commercially located out of any neighborhood, many in places that resemble modern scary out-patient centers. The hygienists, whom now are called dental assistants, do the majority of the work and the dentist very little (for normal healthy teeth). Many times the dental assistants rotate so you end up with a different one, a lot. Sometimes the doctors do the same. On occasion I get an assistant that I never even saw before, nor will again. I don’t know if there is an assistant “on loan” program or what? Sometimes I wonder why the doctor even bothers to come into the room after the assistant has brutalized you, until I realize that he has to justify a charge for the supposed doctor’s visit. Can you opt out of seeing the doctor and only see the assistant, and get a reduction off your bill? I’ve never tried it. Better yet, can you opt out of seeing the assistant, some of whom are more painful than others! I sometimes wonder what happens when the assistant has a “bad eye” day, as I sometimes do, as I age. Are they guessing at where your tooth and gum meet?
The biggest change is the pain and tension factor involved in a dentist visit. Now the dental assistant pokes around with the same instruments the previous old neighborhood doctor used, but she, or he, does it much longer and gets down into the gums much deeper, switching between instrument sizes which creates even more tension and hostility in the patient. What do they teach these people in school? Personally I start to sweat and grab my pants pockets waiting for a slip that may send the sharp instrument into my cheek or lip. If that isn’t enough, instead of having you rinse with the Dixie-like cup, they now use a jet water sprayer to rinse your teeth after they brush them and then stick another hose down your throat supposedly to suction the water bath up. It only half works. I was at the dentist today and nearly drowned. There was something wrong with the sprayer and the assistant had to towel off my face near the end. Do dental assistants take a class for this, “Using the combo hydra-sprayer and suction device 101?”
There are only two probable reasons that dentistry changed. To make more money for the industry or to save parents from having to make sure their kid’s brush and floss their teeth correctly, which later brings more money to the dentists. So maybe there is only one reason. Quite frankly, I see no reduction in cavities in the kids (or adults) I know now, from the kids I knew as a kid.
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