patients

It's been a VERY slow week.  My partner and I have had many last minute cancellations and a few no-shows, leaving us with a week in which we did nothing but cleanings and denture adjustments.  Sometimes though, this can lead to some interesting conversations.

One of our cleanings was a new patient of sorts.  A certain husband-wife pair had been coming to the dental clinic pretty much since it opened.  I have treated the husband a few times, while the wife saw students in another suite.  She decided to transfer suites and start seeing me for treatment, her first appointment being a cleaning.  (This made me happy.  The woman is adorable and always brings dental related comics that she cuts from the newspaper.)  At her appointment, she requested to make another one for her husband.  I gently reminded her that he was not due for a cleaning until October.  She informed me that he is now in hospice care and he likely won't make it to October.  She thought that getting him out of the house to get his teeth cleaned while he was still mobile would pick up his spirits a little bit.  I made him an appointment for next week.  Then it dawned on me.  This cleaning will likely be the last one he ever has.  And I will be the one to do it.  I suppose I see so much of the dental care I provide for people as temporary in a way.  If I clean your teeth, chances are that you will have another cleaning in 6 months.  I have replaced so many broken down fillings and crowns that I assume some dentist 10, 15, 20 years from now will be replacing my work.  But that may not necessarily be the case.  Several of my patients are in their twilight years and it is very likely that they will take some of my dental work to the grave with them.  And this may be a slightly morbid thought, but some of those crowns and bridges I have done will still be around when there is nothing left but bones.  And who knows?  In 1,000 years, some civilization could be unearthing some of my patients to see what life was like in the 21st century and laugh at our novel ways of repairing teeth.  They could be looking at my work!  It's so weird to think about.  I guess what I do every day really can have some permanence.

In somewhat related news, there are also some patients at the clinic that really appreciate what the students do for them.  Mindi and I were fortunate enough to have one of these patients under are care when we worked together in our 3rd year.  Even though I no longer provide dental care for this patient, she has become a friend that I always chat with when she comes in for her appointment.  Mindi was working on a pretty involved case with her that has taken just over a year to complete.  The patient was elated at how well it turned out and invited us to dinner to celebrate such a positive outcome.  Being a fellow Chicagoan, the patient ordered italian beef from Portillos AND a pizza from Lou Malnatis to celebrate. She had them shipped all the way from the Windy City just for our little shindig.  It was great fun eating and benefitting from Mindi's hard work.  The food was amazing.  And she even got us these cute little planters.  Where do you find a tooth planter?  We are so spoiled.

The really wonderful patients that I get to see really make up for the ones that can be pains in the rear.  They make up for them 100%.