Monday, March 13, 2006

Ach!

Don't get me wrong, I love the NYU College of Dentistry. They are cheap, effective and there are a lot of other benefits as well. Chief among them the fact someone always checks the work of your Dentist. At the very least, this gives you the "two-eyes-are-better-than-one" benefit, but can also be counted on to activate the "trying to impress the boss" benefit and finally, the powerful "don't want to make self out to be an ass" benefit.
This takes away that whole Powerless Ignorance Blind Trust aspect of going to see someone in the medical profession. I can't see what the dentist is looking at, wouldn't know what it was if I could see it and certainly wouldn't know what the hell to do about it. So he or she talks at me with a bunch of words, I nod as if I understand, and they get on with whatever they would have done anyway whether I was mute, deaf or a barnyard animal. I am in a fairly decent position to talk about this, as I grew up with what I eventually came to realize was a completely incompetent dentist and have a badly fit crown done by a different, rushing dentist before he effed off to lunch that bothers me just about every day.

You are paying these "professionals" for not just the work they do, but for the blind faith they supposedly have earned through years of school and obscure titling rules which reach back to the days when a position in the professional class was less a proof of knowledge and competence than an accident of good-but-ya-know-what-just-not-really-good-enough birth. It's a sad loss of innocence sort of day when you take that next step into adulthood, that step labeled "Professionals Are Not Necessarily Not Idiots."

It happened to me with a lawyer, which was particularly unfortunate, but that is a story for another, or, to be honest, no other time.

You: "Well, congratulations, you've lost me again you obfuscationist fool!"
Me: "How about this? 'It is a crazy society where the person filling your order at a fast food restaurant has their work checked by another while those making decisions affecting your health, finances and personal freedom do not."

I'm just sayin'...

Anyway, before I was so rudely interrupted, by me, I was trying get the point across that although I do love the NYUCD,(as they like their checks made out), they did drill on me for a freaking eternity today and are currently not my favorite people.

That's it.

7 comments:

  1. ok, I caught about 90% of that. This is an improvement.

    on my part

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous7:24 PM EST

    My dentist always checks after the Hygienist and the other dentists when they do procedures. I thought it was annoying to have to wait there but now, not so much!

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I got everything but "obfuscationist" which I am looking up this very minute . . . Leave it to you to confuse me with a word meaning "to confuse". Is that supposed to be ironic?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous2:03 PM EST

    1. I grew up in the same area as you - maybe we had the same incompetent dentist?
    2. Are you still high on anesthesia
    3. Thank you catboy for saving me the trip to the dictionary - and rofl @ Don for using that word after the confusion with the family post.
    4. The drive through person at my local Taco Bell apparently has a doctorate in fast food, because she actually did give me "lots of hot and mild" - and no one checked on her

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous11:15 PM EST

    "obfuscationist" - This was not an SAT word, was it? I would have remembered that, I think. This blog is as good as a Word-A-Day calendar, when you are actually posting to it, that is.

    ReplyDelete
  7. your prior dentist probably had to go blog about this fool in his chair who liked big words.

    did you have to listen to the drill noise? as much as i love the dentist, that noise is not so much my favorite one.

    ReplyDelete