Dentistry... And a Date?
When working as a fill-in hygienist, you get used to being uncomfortable. Before I even begin my workday, I drive an average of 30 unpaid minutes to a different office every day in unfamiliar parts of town where traffic patterns are foreign to me. I usually have no idea what the office building looks like and frequently can't read their awful signage from the road. Once I've found the office, I have to unload my chair, loupes, and other personal crap I need to do my job in as little pain as possible, then roll everything inside (occasionally requiring me to use elevators or walk up two flights of stairs with two heavy bags and a saddle chair).
Within the first five to fifteen minutes of introducing myself, I then have to learn the layout of the office and where typical supplies can be found, what equipment and software they use (which I may or may not be familiar with, so I'll need to learn on the fly), what the interpersonal dynamics are among the staff, what my schedule load will be, typical protocols the office has for doctor's checks, new patients, etc., how annoyed the patients are going to be at seeing an unfamiliar face, and how irritated the office manager is going to make me throughout the day.
These are just a few of the potential stressors I have to contend with before I even put a mirror in a patient's mouth (the patients themselves being another massive contribution to my overall stress level).
So I hear you asking, "But Earl, why do you put up with this shit? Why not work at the same office every day and not deal with the constant chaos and unpredictability?"
Short answer: I need it this way. The long answer will be the topic of another blog post. But for now, all you need to understand for the rest of this story is that this is how it must be for me to show up and do this thankless job.
Yesterday started out as many have started before. This was a new office, one I had never worked in before, so I mentally prepared myself to deal with all the unpleasantness I mentioned at the beginning.
There were two dental offices in the same strip, so (of course) I managed to walk into the incorrect one. No problem. You learn to brush off mistakes like this early in your career, or you'd likely die of awkward cringe. So I roll myself down to the correct office, and the smell hits me first—mothballs and cheap air freshener, like the dingy plastic cones filled with weird smelly goo you see sitting on the back of a toilet. The floors haven't been mopped in ages, and I can see dust bunnies skittering across the floor as the door closes behind me. The office manager yells my name like we were best friends in middle school reuniting after 20 years. I was instantly uncomfy.
She shows me to my operatory and starts as most office personnel do when first meeting me: over-explaining everything and talking to me like I'm a fucking idiot. If fighting the urge to roll my eyes was an Olympic sport, I would take home the gold. I cut her off by politely asking where the break room was so I could put down my things. Why these people always start listing unimportant hyper-specific procedural details while I'm holding a handful of heavy shit always baffles me.
I come back to the op and start doing my usual investigation. I open all the drawers as the manager talks, and she informs me that the x-ray tube head in my room doesn't work, so I'll need to have the assistants take my x-rays in other rooms. Fabulous. They also use some weird x-ray software I've never seen before, and all of the equipment looks like it was salvaged third-hand from an office that was new in the late 70s. I look at my instruments and my heart drops even further. Nubs. I'm expected to adequately clean teeth with this rag-tag collection of dull, dangerous, essentially useless posterior scalers (no anteriors or universals) missing several millimeters of working edge, and a cavitron tip that was so short, it could have been used to prep fillings. Fuck my life.
Side tangent rant incoming...
I encounter instruments like this with alarming frequency. I used to only get angry at the doctor and office manager for their failure to properly equip their clinicians with the bare fucking minimum needed for a hygienist to do her job. I now realize that my anger is partially misplaced. I should also be angry at the other idiot hygienists who work permanently in these offices for continuing to use this garbage. Why are they complacent? Why do they think using dangerous and faulty instruments on their patients is OK? Why don't they ask the dentist or office manager for new scalers?? WHY THE FUCK ARE THEY PUTTING UP WITH THIS CRAP AND WHY DO THEY CONTINUE TO USE INSTRUMENTS THAT WILL HURT THEMSELVES AND THEIR PATIENTS??? THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!
This office only had two hygienists with two sets of instruments each. For less than $400, the office could buy four new universal Montana Jacks and four cavitron tips (I found Bonart tips on Net-32 for about $60 each if they wanted to go the cheap route), and the issue would be solved. Fuck this nonsense. Hygienists must demand sharp, working instruments and cavitron tips that won't bore through enamel. The damage caused to a hygienist's hands by repeatedly using scalers is permanent, career-ending, and extremely painful. You can't do an adequate cleaning with dull nubs, so your patient is not receiving adequate care. None of this is OK, and hygienists are doing it to themselves by being lazy, incompetent pussies that won't demand a safe working environment for themselves and their patients. It needs to stop. NOW.
Moving on...
As far as patients were concerned, two were memorable. One patient was a pain in the ass to work on, but after I was finished, she asked me about my piercings (I have eighteen), explaining that she's been having some issues getting her new nose studs to heal. I gave her some pro tips, and she left very happy. The second patient was memorable for all the wrong reasons.
She comes in for her cleaning and informs me that her tooth on the lower right has been sensitive, and she's noticed blood and pus when she brushes. She also informs me that she's moving to Arizona tomorrow. Her chart shows a crown and root canal on #31. Oh shit... I tell her I'll go ahead and finish her cleaning as I'll need to move her into another room to take an x-ray (because, again, I couldn't do it in my room with the broken unit).
The cleaning was a breeze. I have the assistant move her to a doctor's op to take the x-ray and do the exam. They use a bizarre scan-x-type system that gets processed in a little closet down the hall, so I walk down to see what I already suspected to be true—a failed root canal.
But it gets worse.
The root canal was done by this dentist in this office back in July (it's currently October for those of you reading this in the future). I audibly gasped as I studied the x-ray. Both roots have large abscesses at the apices, but this I anticipated. What I did not anticipate was the 7mm ribbon of radiopaque gutta percha bursting from the distal root and 4mm bursting from the mesial root of this woman's doomed molar (I didn't take photos of her x-ray, but I'm including example photos for context).
This ignorant motherfucker overfilled this woman's root canal, and now the only option is to extract. She has to lose a body part due to this fuckwit dentist's incompetence and hubris.
I stand in the doorway to the doctor's op and overhear him telling this woman outright lies and purposefully glossing over the fact that he is the reason her root canal failed. This woman has lovely teeth, by the way. Excellent homecare. Had Invisalign done. Shiny white and beautiful smile. I'm furious for her because she doesn't understand what this dentist has done to her. She doesn't understand that this is grounds for a lawsuit, and she should be ripping this moronic dentist a new asshole.
The dentist gets done gaslighting this poor woman, she leaves the office, and I go to write up my note in a huff. Wait, she's moving tomorrow. He did give her a prescription for an antibiotic, right? OF COURSE HE DIDN'T. THE STUPID FUCKER FORGOT TO GIVE HER THE SCRIPT!
I marched down to his office and asked whether he had written her a prescription. "Oh, uhh. I'll do that now." The restraint it took not to tell this man to go fuck himself and find a different career made my eye twitch for the next two hours.
I managed to get through the day without a meltdown, but only barely. My hands hurt, and I've hated every minute I've been in this dirty, antiquated shit-hole, but I survived.
My last patient is a fourteen-year-old kid with braces. I call him from the waiting room and ask his dad if he has any questions or concerns. He says no. I clean up the kid, the doctor does his check and informs the dad of his findings (no cavities), and I walk them up front to check out. Done and done.
I'm breaking down and cleaning my op when the office manager comes in and jump scares me again (she had been popping up behind me every hour asking if I had any questions). "Are you married?" she asks, wide-eyed and tickled. "Divorced," I reply hesitantly. "...Why?" She then informed me that the father of my teenage patient thought I was "smoking hot" and was wondering if I'd be interested in a date.
I was dumbfounded. I couldn't make any words form in my mouth. It's the end of a long workday. I'm wearing glorified pajamas. I probably have mask whiskers on my face, and half of my makeup has worn off. I'm sweaty and covered in biohazard. Dentistry is not a job where one feels sexy or prepared to be propositioned by your clientele.
The office manager laughs and says, "Well, I can give him your number! At least you'll get a free meal out of it." I wanted to die. I wanted to evaporate into the void. I really really wanted to slap this bitch. I think I said something about being happily single and that it didn't seem appropriate. "What do you mean?" she squeaked. I gestured around as if to say, "Because I'm at work, you fucking weirdo."
The dad was also a patient at this office, so she turned around and looked up his information in his chart. "How old are you?" Too old for this bullshit... "I'll be 38 in December," I tell her, becoming increasingly exhausted. She looks at his chart again and says, "Ooh, he's 48. That's a bit old, huh?" What did I do to deserve this torture? "Yeah, I think so," I said, pretending to be disappointed. She babbled on about something, but I wasn't paying attention anymore. I just wanted to finish cleaning up, grab my shit, and go back to my goblin cave where I belong. I wasn't staying here a minute past five o'clock. The office manager made another dumb joke I was too mortified to remember and practically skipped back to the front desk.
I finished setting up the op for the next unfortunate hygienist that would have to endure this clusterfuck of an office and went to the break room to gather my stuff. As I rolled my shit towards the door, the office manager tells me that she told the dad I was 35 and too young for him. I assume this lie was told so I didn't hurt his delicate man feefees. I was nauseous. I faked a laugh and thanked her for doing me a solid. She asked me about working additional days and if I was interested in a full-time position. I explained that, unfortunately (for her), I really prefer doing fill-in and told her if she needed my help again, she has my number (tragically for me).
My skin hurt as I walked back to my car, and I wanted to take a Hallmark movie shower the minute I got home. I peeled out of the parking lot so fast that my tires squealed. I put on angry dubstep music for the drive home. "What in the actual fuck?" I said to myself. "The uncomfortable, incomprehensible, unhinged bullshit I go through just to get a paycheck..."
*hums 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton*
