Project Mayhem

I have a dentist appointment tomorrow.  I hate going to the dentist. 

Dentistry seems to have been doing the medical industry’s impression of a deer in headlights for the last two decades.  While other medical fields have been doing such things as, oh, discovering DNA, completing the human genome sequence, cloning animals and using lasers to help the blind see, dentistry has been pumping Air Supply’s “Lost in Love” through headphones so you can’t hear the drill.   

I decided to investigate what dentistry has been up to.  Let’s see, there’s “air abrasion,” a method of “removing dental decay with a high-powered spray.”  Reports are that that’s not very effective.  There’s also laser treatment, but it doesn’t appear very common.  (Does your dentist use one? Case and point.)  And then there’s “photo imagery of the teeth” so they can “instantly be shown on a computer screen.”  Kodak has been doing that with disposable cameras since the ‘90s.

Near as I can tell there are only two things that have changed since I started going to the dentist in 1965:  the chair’s a little more comfortable and they now have cable TV.  Oh, and they don’t give you suckers anymore – a bit counterintuitive, I guess.  Otherwise, all the crap is still the same:  a needle the size of a yardstick, a foot-controlled drill, a dime-size mirror on a stick, a metal squirt gun and Scholastics Magazine in the lobby.  (Was it just me, or did Gallant always seem like a total lame-ass wuss compared to Goofy?) Oh, and they also started putting a protective vest on you during the X-rays.  The fact that I was given no such vest during the first 25 years of my dentist-going days is somewhat disconcerting.  And all those years I thought I was going prematurely bald because of genetics. 

Yo, what up, dentists?  Where’s the creativity?  Come to think of it, maybe that’s why the industry has been sited as the profession with the highest suicide rate.  (Apparently, though, that’s just an urban legend, fueled by a Seinfeld episode.  The American Dental Association claims the suicide rates among dentists are no higher than the national average.  For the record, the Center for the Study of Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior at the University of South Carolina says that, “occupation is not a major predictor of suicide.”  It is worth noting, however, that PR people were not included in that study. As far as I’m concerned, the case is still open.) I digress…

Dentistry needs creative help, and I’m not talking toothpaste with fluoride, I mean serious creative, like push-button robotics that drill to precise depth and dimensions, eliminating my dentist’s hand in my mouth.  Hell, I’d be happy if they could find something other than those razor-sharp cardboard torture cubes they put in your mouth to take an X-ray.  After they position the jagged little suckers to perfectly pierce the roof of your mouth, they have the gull to demand, “Bite down.”  Seriously?  That’s like a doctor holding a scalpel against you and saying, “lean into it.” 

I know this all probably sounds like a man with dementia – I’ll blame it on the ton of lead I still have in my teeth.