Narc Hounds

Sorry about no recent posts - I've been busy trying to find a new assistant and the like, as well as covering the full schedule for my associate, who was in England for a couple weeks.

So a couple days back I'm in the office on a Saturday, doing some paperwork and seeing a patient for an emergency. My cell rings and it's a young woman...we'll call her Jessica Thompson. Jessica says she hasnt' been in in a while but she's a patient of record and she has a toothache...what can we do? I told her to just come on over and we'll take a look.

When she arrives I take a few xrays and discover that she has a blown out wisdom tooth on upper right...the lower right one is a bit dodgy too, and she has tons of big fillings, so who knows what's going on with those... I told her that she has an infection in the upper wisdom tooth and needs it extracted. She's concerned about money, since she's Medicaid. I told her we'd take that and could extract those teeth. "I'm very anxious, and need to be put to sleep."

(I love it when patients ask to be "put to sleep," meaning sedated. I kinda wanna say, "Well, have you talked to your family vet? I"m told they offer that service...")

OK, well, I"ll refer you to an oral surgeon who can do IV sedation. Here's a script for some antibiotics - how are you getting by w/ pain meds?

"Well, i'm taking a ton of ibuprofen and it's not helping much."

OK, we'll get you some vicod...

"Oh no...vicodin doesn't work for me, and I'm allergic to codeine."

hmm... what does work?

"Percocet. I have a high tolerance for pain meds"

Ahhah. ok...why such a high tolerance?

"Well, I had two C-sections and also an ovarian cyst removed, so I took a lot of those and I need a lot to work now."

Well, ok... we'll write you some Percocet....

"Oh, and the regular kind doesn't work for me."

Regular?

"yeah, the 5 mg kind.... I need the 10 mg kind."
(percocet is oxycodone plus acetaminophen...the narcotic is usually five mgs, but also comes in 7.5 and 10mg varieties.... Baby Bear, Mommy Bear and Daddy Bear. She wants the big guns.)

hmmm. OK, but let me tell you this: You are getting a LOT of serious stuff here. We are not fooling around. As such, if you don't follow up with the oral surgeon I'm referring you to, you will be dead to us. (OK, that's a paraphrase... not quite so much Godfather, but you get the idea, Gentle Reader)

"Its cool. I'm not a druggie."

(Um, never said you were - just told you to keep your appointments or we can't help you...)

So! Let me go make sure I write this all up in your chart before I forget.... It's Jessica Thompson, right? Hmm...lots of other Thompsons here...mom, grandpa, cousins....ok. No Jessica.... Let me go check the inactive files.... lessee...Hunting for Thompson.....huh! not there. Hey, Jessica - your last name ever change, or did you marry into Thompson?

"No."

OK, well, when you come back, I'll need you to sign a few papers and fill out a med history, but I'll let you go now, since you have to pick up your toddler.

So. Now I'm confused...after she leaves, I fire up the computer (remember, this is the weekend and they aren't usually running) and get into Dentrix and run a first name search on "Jessica." I find one with the appropriate birthdate, and it's listed under "Jessica Limbaugh." Sure enough, when I pull that chart, the label is affixed over another, and I can make out it used to be "Jessica Thompson." Upon pulling the notes out, I see that the last entry for Jessica Thompson (nee' Limbaugh) is from October of '05. My associate wrote, "Called pt to tell her we are aware that she is acquiring meds from several Drs and Pharmacies and we will not give her any more."

Now what's stunning here is not that someone lied to get drugs - that happens to me a few times every month. What's amazing is that it was such a bald-faced lie when I asked if she ever had any other names. Also stunning is the lack of shame of your average Narc Hound, cuz after she took the 12 percs I gave her Saturday, she was back for seconds on Monday. Still in pain, yes, she was taking the antibiotic, yes, she was taking Ibuprofen as well, and now she was crying and holding a two-year-old on her lap. Righto.

I say: Jessica, I understand you're in a lot of pain, and I want to help you, but we need to trust each other. I found your chart (holding it up) under Jessica Limbaugh. Did you ever go by that name?

"Yes, (*sniff*) when I was married....I guess."

OK, but Saturday, when I asked you, "Have you ever had any other names at all?" you said No.

confusedly: "Well, you see, it's just that I wasn't hardly married for very long at all." (pathetic tear drops duly noted)

I see. Well, I think there's a fair amount of paperwork involved in this sort of transaction - you can't just change your name on the internet - did the whole experience of being married and then not married just kind of slip your mind when I asked you?

(now sobbing) "Well...you see, a few months ago, I was in a car accident, and I had this concussion....wah wah."

Oh! OK, you had a concussion and some resultant amnesia that causes you to selectively forget that you were ever married?!?!?

"Waaah!"

Jessica, you should probably think of bottling some of that up, cuz I know a few people who would love to be able to selectively forget they were ever married....

So, I wrote another couple scripts to change up the antibiotics and get her another (lower end) pain med and told her to go to the oral surgeon. I found out that she ended up rescheduling her Thursday appointment with them to Monday AND got them to give her more meds 'til Monday, which just shows you how nice a guy Dr. Q---- is, since I'd called him to tip him off about her, but he still felt she must have legitimate pain (after five days of penicillin and 3 days of flagyl on top of it?).

So then she no-showed her Monday appointment. Or cancelled? I called her (from a phone that wasn't mine, I might add) and asked what happened. She said that Dr. Q----'s office wouldn't do IV sedation for her cuz it wasn't covered by her Medicaid, so she scheduled with Dr. Z----'s office a couple towns over. I'll need to call and confirm this, and alert Dr Z---- to Jessica's "high tolerance" problem, but I'm kinda skeptical about Medicaid ever covering IV sedation for extractions anywhere.... Perhaps Dr Z---- just figures it's easier to write it off than have people cancel cuz they're scared. However, if I did IV sed, I dont' think I'd want to expose myself, liability-wise, to a group of people who I've known to leap at litigious opportunities.... Hmmm.

Now, you can ask, Gentle Reader, "Gosh, Doc...how come you're so dumb? You KNEW she was scamming, didn't you?"
Sure I did. And that makes me feel like those guys who get caught on "To Catch a Predator" who are like, "Is this a set-up?" "No." "Well, OK...." "Hi, I'm Chris Hanson from Dateline NBC..." "I KNEW it was a set-up! I knew it!!"
Um, sure you did, moron, and you still walked in?

Well, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, and don't forget, she DID have a gaping hole in the wisdom tooth. A past history of drug seeking (even for "legitimate (?)" reasons doesn't negate current pain.

As our President once said, "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

(Speaking of politics, the psuedonyms used for "Jessica" in this piece are random, and are in no way related to famed substance-users/abusers from either end of the political spectrum. Thank you.)

Wisdom - The Epilogue

So the aforementioned patient from my previous post calls me the next day. "My face is throbbing and on fire and it hurts and is swollen."

"Are you taking Ibuprofen like I told you?"

"Yes, three of them every 6 hours." (You could ramp that up, but not too shabby there...)

"Are you following all the directions we sent you home with?"

"Was I supposed to read that?" (Augh! I KNEW I shouldn't have removed that wisdom tooth! Look what happens!)

"Er, sure...Anyway, take an ice pack, or a bag of frozen veggies and hold it to your face - 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off. That should help."

"Vegetables?"

"Sure. I think frozen peas work best."

"Eughh! I hate peas!"

Hopefully the insidious peas were unable to osmose through the plastic and her cheek so as to cause any REAL damage....

cha!

It's unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom.

.... this according to Ghandi.

That said, I humbly present this dialogue between myself and a 31-year-old female patient with a sore tooth.

Dr: Your upper right wisdom tooth is both broken and infected. The good news is - It should be pretty easy to remove.

Patient: Right now?

Dr: Probably take about five minutes, sure.

Pt: Hmm. But is it ok to remove?

Dr: Well, if you had a really huge infection then that might complicate things, but I think it'll be fine in your case.

Pt: No, but I mean...it's a wisdom tooth.

Dr: That is correct. And it's basically shot - there is no saving it, only a lot of discomfort if we don't remove it.

Pt: But what about the wisdom?

Dr: (Where? I don't see any...) "Errrr....I'm sorry?"

Pt: It's a wisdom tooth.

Dr. (back on solid footing) Yes!

Pt: So won't it affect...my...um....you know....

Dr: (please be kidding please be kidding please...) "...um.....I'm afraid I don't...."

Pt: My wisdom.

Dr: Like, your intelligence?

Pt: I guess.

Dr: (trying really hard to not be condescending) Um, "wisdom tooth" is sort of an expression - they don't show up 'til you're older and presumably wiser...Not actually tied to any wisdom, uh..... (am I REALLY having this conversation?)

Pt: Oh. Just checking. So, can you knock me out?

Dr: (You're conscious now? Really?) Um we can get you numb...you'll feel only pressure.

Pt: What if it goes to my brain?

Dr: What, the anesthetic?

Pt: Yeah. I don't want my brain numbed.

Dr: I can guarantee the anesthetic is the least of your concerns.....


I am so not making this up.

During the extraction, this lady just about squeezed off my poor assistant's hand and kept loudly exclaiming, "I can't breathe! I can't breathe! I'm dying, I swear!"

Signs of airway distress: Short rapid breaths, physically labored ventilation, sternal retraction, cyanosis.... Hollering "I can't breathe!" over and over: not actually a sign.....

Afterwards, offered her mild narcotic for post-operative pain - "Oh, gosh no... I can't take those! They make me CRAZY!"

Ah.
We wouldn't want that....

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Hello all! Just got back from the esteemed Yankee Dental Congress in Boston - Ooh, the things to learn.

Had classes on:
Generating a Standard Operating Procedures Manual
Paperless Records
Implant Overdentures
Update on Posterior Composites
Early Treatment of Class II Malocclusion
ANNND
a fun class on Forensic Odontolgy.

Oh, sure, CSI looks cool for a while, but after seeing enough airplane crash victims who are not much more than jawbone fragments AND seeing a fair number of infants in morgues, one wonders how fun that could be....

more office upgrades to follow....

Office Spacing out...

Yo homies! sup? It is ONE A.M. and I am taking a break from painting painting painting the side operatory...mostly trim now.

Can I just say this: Professionally, I strongly discourage eating Nerds and washing it down with Red Bull.

But....Damn! It's like a party in my mouth and everyone's invited!

gotta go; my eyeball's twitching, which is my sign that it's time to re-paint!

"Repaint, repaint, and thin no more..."

Not dead yet....

...so, you'll all be happy to know that I survived my as-yet-undiagnosed mouth weirdness.

after 4-5 days, it stopped throbbing and shrunk up, tho' 1 week after it appeared there's still a small bump.

In other news I treated a rather horrendous trauma case yesterday - 15 yo kid comes in w/ his mom off the street (that is to say, not patients) and he'd fallen on some icy and took it right in upper front tooth (#9 for you dental types).
My receptionist referred to him as coming in with "tooth in hand" tho' actually it was hanging out in a large plastic Dunkin' Donuts cup w/ some milk in it. "Can you put it back in?" mom asks.... well, sure.... but will it stay?

The problem with the human head is that it sure does like to bleed a lot. I was recounting this incident to some architect friends and Mr. English excused himself to "go out for a bit of air." Apparently not everyone is fascinated by situations involving terms like "laceration" and "hemorrage." "Avulsion" is another fun one...

Anyhoo, shot him up w/ a carp of Septocaine even tho' it didn't really hurt that much to touch that area. Noted aforementioned laceration from cervical gingiva all the way up the depth of the vestibule to the subnasal area. The maxillary bone comprising the facial aspect of the #9 socket was fractured medially and apically and did NOT want to be reapproximated w/ the adjoining bone, which I found irritating.

So, rinsed off the root (don't scrub!) popped it back in and repacked w/ a whole sleeve of gauze and cotton rolls. I will say this. The blood doesn't bother me, but there's something deeply disturbing about an otherwise intact tooth having bits of asphalt still embedded in the enamel....

Rang up an oral surgeon for a consult and finally got a hold of the fourth one I tried.... (Hey guys! What's up with the extreme bankers' hours on a Wednesday afternoon?? You know who you are! JK....luvya all...) He suggested a number of steps w/ bonding some wire and suturing the tissue etc etc. I said, "yeah...boy, this always happens when you're half-way through a crown prep (#4). Dr. R---- was kind enough to offer to take the case and I was happy to refer.

Disappointing not to be "the hero" in that situation, but even after farming him out, my poor crown prep lady ended up being in the other chair for nearly 3 hours! yow. She was sympathetic and understanding, but still a tough situation.

The young man's mom came back this morning to say that things went well, he feels ok and the oral surgeon feels the prognosis isn't too bad to save the tooth. Hooray. Be sure to nail down the inevitable root canal before he's off insurance tho', right.... ? one step at a time...

Palatal Lesion!

Here's what I posted already to Yahoo Answers....
Hi! This is driving me nuts! OK, I usually get sick on vacation - immune sys. shuts down and I spend half of the time buried in a tissue box. This past week, no exception - started w/ sore throat xmas eve which has persisted 6 days. in b/t, have had rhinitis, sinus pain 'n congestion, cough. I've tx'd w/ lozenges, Vit C, fluids, boatloads of ibuprofen and a few tyl and/or tyl sinus here 'n there.

OK, so far, par for the course. Virus, cold, whatever (btw, i did have flu shot one mo ago...). YESTERDAY, I noted a slight swelling upper hard palate, ant. to vibrating line and 5mm medial to #s 2 &3. today, more swelling, lesion is maybe 3x5mm w/ a smaller 2x2 adjacent. tiss is slightly erythematous, dome-like, non-ulcerated, v tender to palp. no exudate.
my differential so far: salivary? lymphatic? drainage from sinus inf?? it is quite sore and thobs a lot. Any thoughts? (flew Ohio to Bos Fri AM and spent week driving 'roung OH/MI....?) Any thoughts?

Additional Details
8 hours ago
OK, i know it's not traumatic, as there's no ulceration. Secondly, I do have a very slight hx of H. labialis - the prodrome tingle and then lesion, tho' that's only occurred 2-3x in my life (mostly in school, i might add...). But again, there's one dome-ish lesion that MIGHT look herpetic, tho' the large one is nothing like....
They are still there going on 36 hrs but they are less painful than yesterday eve. also, i slept for like 14 hrs last night, so that was maybe helpful.
0 seconds ago
Yes, I considered the parulis/fistula possibility w/ the palatal root....but this is WAY up on the vault - almost adjacent to the midline and not on palatal of the alveolar process.... plus tooth is totally assymptomatic - no hot/cold or percussion sensitivity and no resp to attempting to move indiv. cusps. I have not had a chance to get to the office for a PA however....and I do probably have a good sized comp in there.

tagging....

I'm going to take a stab at getting noticed by spiders. Let's see what happens:

(oh, and don't click on these; they'll just take you here. and you're already here. why leave?)



dentist blog

dentistry blog

nate swanson

nathan swanson

nate swanson, dds





and now we'll try these:



dentist blog

dentistry blog

nate swanson

nathan swanson



nate swanson

nathan swanson

dentist blog

dentistry blog

Karma....?

OK, so last week I had the strangest experience I think I've ever had.

Not dentally related, but still...

It was unseasonably warm, so I was enjoying a coffee and reading a new book on a park bench before heading to work.

The sun was shining, a light breeze was blowing and the birds were singing. I felt a soft tap on my shoulder and realized that the birds were not just singing, but pooping on me as well. Nice.

(this is the point in the story where a number of listeners quickly point out "That's good luck!")

Funny you should mention that. So, I stood up and headed for a store where I could attempt to clean my jacket in the restroom. Not two steps away, on the ground in front of me and with no one else in sight, I noticed a crisp new FIVE DOLLAR BILL! Well, that's not a bad trade-off. Especially since the bird-doo easily cleaned off the soft leather jacket.

But that's not super weird..it's not as ironic as, say, winning the lottery, running out into the street to celebrate and getting hit by a truck. No, what was most bizarre was the book I was reading.

It's a collection of short stories entitled "Things Fall from the Sky."

I (bird) sh-t you not.

Put yer money where yo mouf iz!

Well, another career milestone has been reached. We all remember that first filling, first extraction, first bridge.... but now...

My first grill! Yep indeedy. For those of you who are over 30 and/or oblivious to some of the finer points of hip-hop culture, a "grill" is a piece of mouth jewelry worn over the anterior upper teeth.

They were popularized by Nelly's '05 hit of the same name. "Smile fo' me daddy/ Let me see yo grill!"
(I won't quote the whole song, but mad props to rapper Ali for rhymin' "da bottom" with "Hillary Rodham")

Anyhoo, here's some examples!

And in action!

Here's the one I did (sorry about quality; i just had my cell cam on me!):


BLING!

I will admit that I had nothing to do with the external surface of the appliance - he just brought it to me and said, "Can you make it fit?" So there ya go. One more service offered. I'll let you all know when I come up with the ADA fee code for that.....

I originally tried to line it with Quick Bite, which is just a bite registration vinyl material. Too brittle. I ended up actually using VersaTemp, which is pretty strong but has a little flex to it. We'll see how long it lasts!

Oooh, Toothbrush recycling!!

OK, So, after watching Will Farrell brush his teeth religiously in "Stranger than Fiction," I was cued in to the BRUSH he was using...it's a Recycline curved brush! check it out:

Recycline Products!

I'm so stoked. I can buy brushes made from recycled yogurt cups!! Whoot. Now, everyone can improve their hygiene whilst saving the earth. ohyes.

I can apparently order them by the gross AND get them imprinted with the practice name. Yippee ky yay!

HEY! If you're visiting from Yahoo Answers, Please, leave a little note! Would love to hear from you.

More dental hijinks to follow....

Dear Abby....

...Hey, I just discovered the Yahoo interactive answer pages....
People ask all sorts of questions and those (hopefully) knowledgeable reply - and quickly! Very impressive. So I'm going nuts giving my (solicited!) opinion.

***If you are visiting my blog and were referred by the Yahoo site, let me know, leave a message! let me know what other topics interest you in terms of blogging and dental!


Anyway, and Yahoos referred here from there - Welcome!.

Others, go check out:
Yahoo Dental Questions

Later, kids!

CSI...shame on you...

Sooooo, I'm watching the greatest show on Thursday night.... and there's this bit where they notice that this missing boy's grandfather is missing some teeth. They show a close up of upper Left part of the guy's mouth... he's clearly missing #6 and 7 or maybe 5 and 6. LATER, at an abandoned house, they find what looks like a 2 unit porcelein bridge... which is weird, cuz what's the point of that? if it's two units, why connect? the guy was missing two teeth, so it wasn't a cantilever.... also, when they showed the bridge, there was some sort of wire linking the teeth, presumably on the lingual.

BUT, it clearly wasn't like a Nesbit type appliance. That would look like a spider. So I think they just made it up and wrote off the intelligence of their dental viewing public.

Another time I was watching SVU and the "coroner" made reference to a deceased victim's "detention." Five minutes later I grasped they MEANT "dentition" and had butchered it...either the writer or actor and no one caught it. or cared.

That's why Finding Nemo was so good...They had an educated debate about the merits of Hedstrom v. K-Flex endo files! ooh, I get chills just remembering how my jaw dropped and I thought, "Wow...they made a joke that .003% of the population could grasp!" amazing.

yay my space....

...so i have this random My Space page that I started on a whim (Dude! you're 30! quit it!) yes, I know, but still... who knows... well, today I found some friends from HS which is amazing cuz I'm SOOO not in touch w/ anyone from there. neato.

Sooo, Tiffany and or Rich...if you're reading this... HEY! check it out! I'm a dentist. how nutty is that?

Ahem. I have to maintain a level of professional propriety! (Which, admittedly, is tricky when you quote chapter and verse of Monty Python whilst performing oral exams....)

In the world of My Life, the practice continues apace. I'm going to see a chiropractor on Monday, which is a first, and an hour later I'm getting a MANICURE. Um, also a first.
After that, it's off to the bars with the rest of the flaming guys... Oh wait.... lol.

Seriously tho', I do some bad stuff to my hands, and worse stuff to my back, so hopefully i'll be all fixed by Tuesday. la.

anyway, talk to all ya'll later...

Extreme Makeover....

.... Dental Staff Lounge Edition! Pow! Kazam! After watching non-stop TLC and HGTV, we assailed the back room of the office. Previously, there was an old rectangular table and four metal deck chairs. Some old dishes. Various communal snacks were in an old Crest box with torn edges, while magazines were stacked on a ledge off to the side. The only decoration was a picture of a lighthouse. (A good picture, actually, but kind of lonely...not unlike actual lighthouses, I suppose.)

Sooooo.... Several hundred bucks at K-Mart, TJ Maxx, Marshalls etc later (oooh! Expense account! yay!) we had new dishes, some racks to organize them, lovely baskets to organize magazines, tea and the like, a new bulletin board (the old one was just a large piece of ceiling foam, I think, like you place around your fluorescent lights...) two paintings of butterflies, three plants (one hanging in the corner, natch), new curtains and a small area carpet to lighten up the industrial rug. The recycling (a cardboard box, appropriately enough, I guess) and the trash are now identical white receptacles with flip-up spring-loaded lids. I replaced the regular clock with a square wooden homemade, hand-painted clock, which was a gift from a denture patient at the non-profit. It features some geese flying over a wooded pond area, and is quite good considering the artist is 79, and suffers from COPD and emphysema.

Most importantly, the Off-Price Furniture store had a nice little table. Lightly stained, it has two small drop leaves and two chairs; the other two are en route. My colleague, Dr B, dropped by whilst we'd replaced just the table and called my cell enthusiastically.... I said, Oh, just you wait.

Photos are hopefully forthcoming!

The unkindest cut....

Sooooo, yesterday I had to let an employee go.

She was hired a week before I bought the practice and basically "wasn't a good fit" as they say. Not entirely fair, to be sure, but unfortunately as "prospective" owner I wasn't consulted when she was hired shortly before I bought the operation...

Anyway, easily the hardest thing I've had to do in my professional life, right after telling that one patient she had oral cancer....

What makes matters worse, was on the way home, I slowed down to pass a flashing-light cop car pulled on the side of the road....yup, it was her. Talk about bad to worse! Hopefully she told the officer why she might not have been driving well and he let her off!

On a slightly uppish note, the darts team was down 4-1 and managed to win 6-5 so I guess that was nice, but I couldn't help but be distracted. I guess I hope I never get used to that kind of thing.

laters all....

Time flies when you're being driven insane....

Hello! not much pin-action here, tho' I recent trip to Ohio netted me some valuable face time with loyal bloggite (and hip, chic Reverend-A-Go-Go on the go) Don. Yay!

ok, after selecting www.newmarketdental.net (sorry dds.com supporters! that included Rachel for what it's worth....) our next decision relates to our (sigh) slogan. I think it's really more of a "tagline" but whatever. I tried to upload the future phone book ads, but I think it was too big a file and I'm too dumb to shrink it down....

So we have the header reading "newmarket dental" and beneath it reads one of two things:

A - {We make a practice of caring}
or
B - {Caring is our practice}

what we're tyring to do is emphasize that while we may not be the fanciest practice with bleeding edge technology, nor the fastest workers, we DO listen to people and treat them as more than a mouth with a wallet.

We don't try to force "ideal" treatment plans down someone's throat (that's what mirrors are for)...we meet them where they are, explain options and let people make informed decisions. Surprising how many practices don't follow that model...


So let me know what you think....

It's time for a Web Site! Vote!

Hey, loyal bloggites! now's the time to have your 2 cents registered in my newest endeavor.

Having decided to name my newly purchased practice "Newmarket Dental," I'm working on the website.

(note: I realize Newmarket Dental exhibits all the creativity of Tarzan and Jane calling thier son "Boy," but I think for purposes of Google -ing, it might be best!)

SOOOO, www.newmarketdental.com is not available. we even tried to inquire to buy it but no response. hm.

I've considered newmarketsmiles.com, newmarketteeth.com, newmarketnhdental.com (awkward!), and even dentistinnewmarket.com, which one friend advised sounded creepily like an online personal ad..... "SWM dentist in newmarket, ISO friendly, educated "assistant." Must be proficient with suction. Non-flossers need not reply..."

anyway, we shouldn't go there, should we.... Anyhoo, we've settled on newmarketdds.com (which keeps the oh-so-popular Dot Com!) orrrr newmarketdental.net.

www.newmarketdds.com

www.newmarketdental.net

there ya go. Let me know what you guys think!

Official statement of Location!

Hey - it just occurred to me that people might be trying to locate me on the web and since Newmarket Dental doesn't have a website yet (Rachel! Meghan! ahem!), I'll just mention it in case folks turn up here...

I'm at 80 Main Street in Newmarket. Phone number is ....well, just look in the book under Chris Batt. That's us! (new ad coming soon; worry not!)

here's some tags, just in case:

dentist blog

dentistry blog

nate swanson

nathan swanson



nate swanson

nathan swanson

dentist blog

dentistry blog

Get that f---ing thing out of my mouth, dumb---!

...is what a 15 year old girl said to me today. She cried and whined...looked 19; acted 7..... cussed me out and gave the ol' "I don't want to be here! I don't want to do this!" OK, so leave. don't get yoru teeth fixed. but here's what's going to happen...more decay, pain, extractions or root canals.... "God! Why do you have to talk to me like I'm a baby!" ummmm.... "Well, I don't assume that people know all that stuff, so I try to explain it. i'm not trying to be condescending, but you deserve to know..."

"I'm not stupid!" oooh kay.... "But you said, 'I don't want to do this' and..."
"Why does everybody always twist my words! You guys are all the same."

Right.
So I was liek 30 seconds away from dismissing her from the practice in like, my second week. I had to put up w/ that crap in school and in the non-profit - But guess what, beeyotch.... I AM the man now, and you can't pay me enough to put up w/ that s--- from a teenager. a five year old, hey, they're irrational, I put up w/ some grief...even the 10 year old I had to pull a baby tooth on last week. fine. but not 15.

Anyway, when I came back, she actually said, 'OK, I'm sorry I was so rude.' which is good cuz it saved her having to explain to mom why she'd have to find another dentist. I may be wildly in debt, but I'm not that desperate.

Let me take this opportunity to welcome fellow Ohioan....um, i don't know her name. but she's a dentist and she's funny and you can see her link off to the right under You can't Handle the Tooth! blog. ta da!

Hank, we're currently watching all the DVDs of Six Feet Under....the one character dies (whoa!) and is ID'd by mandibular dental records (Actual line: "Maybe it wasn't really her! maybe she's not dead and someone else had the same dental work done!"); and her fam is in Cor D'Alene (sp?) so they go off to Idaho at the end of season 4 and it's all kinda country western decor and so forth; kinda funny, albeit inaccurate based on my experience.....