Classic Rant #299 (July 14, 2010): I Hate Going to the Dentist

I have to go to the dentist today. I will be leaving slightly early from work to make my appointment later this afternoon.

I know people strive to become doctors, and they go through a lot to become a member of this profession, but why would anyone choose to become a dentist?

It seems to me to be the most masochistic of all doctoral pursuits, although I realize it is necessary.

To want to make a living diving into patients' mouths to make sure their teeth are right, at least to me, seems so much less honorable and fascinating than working on a person's other medical faults.

I know we are far from the days that dentists would literally rip teeth out of the mouths of their patients--I remember that very funny W.C. Fields short where this exercise almost becomes a sexual practice--but why anybody would want to go into my or anyone else's mouth is beyond me.

I guess you could say the same thing for proctologists, but we don't regularly go to one unless we have a problem.

With dentists, we go each and every year.

Personally, I don't have any cavities, but it seems my crowns are coming out of my mouth, I have a chipped filling, and I have gum disease.

Wonderful.

I know that today I am going for a cleaning before the major work is done next month. Even with the cleaning, I bleed a lot, due to the gum disease.

Again, I understand the services that dentists offer all of us, and I am grateful that they do so.

I just don't understand why, of all the noble medical areas, they picked this one.

I just don't get it.

Open wide ...