Three Hours in The Life of a Dental-Wanna- Be

"Tick tock tick tock", the clock kept ticking, but Jason could not hear the sound it made. He had alot of things in my mind already to be paying attention to that clock. He should probably do though, because before he knew it, time just slipped past his fingers.

Yes his fingers. They were covered in blue latex-free gloves that the university clinic recently ordered to replace the latex ones, in order to save costs. His fingers were slightly shaking as he administered the anaesthesia, to his almost-helpless patient, sitting, or more exactly lying almost supine on the dental chair.

"This may sting a little,"He said calmly as I pressed on the plunger, as slow as he could so as to minimise the pain. He was always the one to keep his cool. But this time he was rushing against time. He needed to fill this tooth in 20 minutes! His mind started to race, his heart pumping faster and tons of adrenaline molecules were released as he entertained this thought. He was so sure this is just going to be a quick filling!

So then he ran the drill quickly to get rid of the soft mushy decay material. And hola he got pulp exposure! Blood oozed out of the exposed root canals. That's expected, no big deal, he'll just remove the nerve and perform root canal treatment. The cavity looked big enough, and all the soft parts were gone. So he went to get his clinical demonstrator. 

The tall, thin bloke with a mustache took one look at the mouth and said," Where's the rubber dam?" The tone was unforgiving. He knew he could not win. He had to get that damn square sheet of rubber on the patient's teeth. His ambitious 20 minute restorative attempt has long flown out of the window.

At the same time, the second patient for the 3-hour clinical session was waiting patiently outside. It turned out the current patient wanted to leave to put in more coins for his parking! So he thought," Hey, why not get him to pay his parking before I put on the rubber dam! That way he did not need to walk outside with his mouth forced open by the rubber dam!" 

So that was what he did. He also took the opportunity to politely inform the second patient that he was unable to see her that afternoon, and gently refer herto nearest emergency clinic where "the dentist" could pull her tooth out. Given the chance, he would really love to take out that tooth, but oh well, he thought, hopefully more chances arise. That was actually his best decision for that day.

So the first patient came back, and Jason tried putting the rubber dam on. Surprise, surprise a part of the tooth just broke off. Of course then being an inexperienced dental student he sought the help of the tall, thin clinical demonstrator, who skillfully put the dam on using two clamps. "That was some skill," he marveled, "I want to be like that some day," he aspired. But as he looked at the tooth and saw how broken down it was, tiny seeds of doubts crept in. He wasn't sure if it can be filled. That doubt lingers. But being the lowest position in the clinical food chain, he was unsure how to bring that up to the tall and thin clinical demonstrator, considering he was instructed to root canal and fill it.

He was about to proceed to fill it, then he thought, do I need to put matrix band around it? It is a piece of metal strip wrapped around the tooth to help give the form of the tooth when it is filled. The university clinic has got only the cheapest type, and they are lousy. He decided not to use it because it will be hard to put it around the broken down tooth, as it has little to hold on to. 

After he put the filling material on, he saw it sticking to the next tooth. S**t. By right that should not happen- how is the patient going to floss? So he tried peeling off a bit of the glass-ionomer filling material, and it came off!.... "Should I re-try with sticking plastic strips between the teeth so they don't stick?" he thought, "or get the tall, thin demo to help again?" He decided to do the latter, which was a bad decision. He thought it showed over-reliance on him as well.

The demonstrator skillfully put on the matrix band on. "Okay, good," Jason rejoiced, "so I just need to fill it". So he filled it, took out the matrix, and whoops, the filling came out with it, glued together like a newly-wed couple. Man, s**t, now what? He tried to problem-solve creatively by conditioning the surface with a glue material, and sticking the filling back on, hoping it will stay. It stayed. For one minute. It came off when he was polishing it. He realised that it's crap. And he could not get the matrix on again. So for the umpteenth time he got the demonstrator again, and the demonstrator just filled it without the damn matrix. But of course he told Jason afterwards Jason should have still use matrix. And in his mind Jason was like, what the hell, you didn't use it too?! And the filling ended up sticking to the next tooth as well in the absence of the matrix. I should have trusted my instinct, he thought. 

And the tall, thin demonstrator caught him laying exposed, unprotected needles on the bracket table. Oo how more unlucky can he get? The day was so f***ed up already. He felt so unprofessional, amateur and inexperienced. He felt he was not able to finish the work by himself and had to rely on other people. He felt inadequate and incompetent. In other words, he felt like a dental student. Well, the lousy ones anyway. He remembered he used to be more proficient than this. "Oh God why..",he muttered.



---------2 week later--------

So our hardworking persevering Jason brought in the same patient to the endodontic clinic to continue the root canal started chaotically 2 weeks ago. After he removed the filling, the endodontic demonstrator looked at it. She examined it and said,"Jason, that tooth cannot be restored, it is too badly broken down. It should have been taken out.."

S**t, he thought. All those drama weeks ago to save a hopeless tooth that should have been extracted! This, is the irony of dentistry, from the life of Jason, our dental student.

Reviews

[LOfCharlemagne]

This is a fascinating read. I love how you described the process, and made it a journey of trying to survive for both the patient and student. Your descriptions are really well done and made it seem very realistic. This is a great story, congradulations :)

[mi_Y]

Thanks for the review! Really appreciate it~

[LOfCharlemagne]

You are very welcome