Posts Tagged ‘Dentists’

Question for the ADA

Monday, July 26th, 2010

While I could spend some time chatting about the odd law suit I’m involved in (donation link at the end…thanks), today I bring you instead, a letter to the American Dental Association.

Unlike many of my corporate missives, I didn’t have any particular beef with them, I was just curious about something.   Please to enjoy:

I apologize for kind of a crazy question, but I was wondering something after my last visit.
The rule of thumb is 30 seconds per quadrant.  I’m assuming that number is based on the use of a manual toothbrush to get to a point of “clean as it’s going to get given the equipment in use”.
But I was curious about something.  If this is an acceptable baseline, is the recommended time actually reduced if you’re using a high speed brush such as a Sonicare?  Given you’d be doing an equivalent amount of brushing in far less time, it stands to reason that the “required” brushing time would be significantly lessoned, no?
As such, is there a secondary recommendation for automated toothbrushes vs. the manual type?  I can certainly understand a stance that more might be better particularly with better equipment, but it would seem that at some point there’s a decline in actual efficacy of brushing with the high speed brush.
Thank you!
Tom

So if you made it this far and are curious about the tin cup rambling above, I’m indeed named in a law suit with 29 others vs some confused person in Texas who’s selling cookies from one face, and promoting healthy eating from the other.

If you’re interested in flat out donating to the legal fund established to help us defend ourselves against the vague ranting in the legal link above, you can donate here:

If you’d like to help out, but also get some truly kick ass handmade glass art in the bargain, you can peruse the group’s Etsy store here.

Thanks.

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Health care professionals just don’t get it

Monday, March 8th, 2010

I’m going to start this off by going against that statement above and say that yes, I understand that the health care providers are overworked and often borderline robbed by the insurance agencies via negotiated discounts.

But that doesn’t mean that they have to be asses.

I took my oldest in for a dental cleaning this morning, it went well as a 4 year old’s dental cleaning can be expected and the I booked him another appointment.

Given he’s in pre-school in the mornings now and I a) find that vastly more important than his dental visit and b) am paying actual money to have him in those pre-school classes, I’m hesitant to pull him out of them early for other activities.   The school’s dedicated time to teach him, we committed to time for him to be there, screw you third party.

So I was a bit taken aback when the pinched face blonde behind the counter gave me “well they usually prefer to do the younger patients in the morning” line and pushed me into an early morning appointment instead of the afternoon one I requested.

Irritated, several hours later I called back and instead asked for an afternoon appointment.  Worse comes to worse I could get him a morning appointment on a morning he doesn’t have school, but he’ll be 4 day in the fall, so I’d rather just get it in the afternoon.

Again, I get “well Dr. ____ usually prefers to do the younger patients in the morning but…”   and I got an early afternoon appointment.

Let me share a secret with you, Mr. Dentist man.

Ready?  Move closer….

IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU.

See that right there?  Simple truth.  You’re treating a human being, I’m sorry if I’m impeding your tee time or your drug rep time.  But my son’s a human being, and as his father I’m charged with setting priorities that help HIM, not you.

I put his education before other things, and if you don’t like it, there’s a whole phone book full of other dentists trying to pay off their student loans.

OK, off my soap box for a little while.

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