Going to the dentist doesn’t come close to a fairy tale. When some patients go to the dentist, it may sound more like a science fiction story! There often is drama, myth, and fantasy. In my book, “Show me your teeth,” I often use humor to give you insights about what goes on behind the scenes in dental offices, and only occasionally do I have to reach for horror stories to describe the reality.
“Show me your teeth” and “Stairway to dental implants” are essays on dentistry or, should I say, on dental psychology with one goal: educating the dental patient – and maybe even the dentist.
By raising the patient’s knowledge in the dental arena, I believe we can help them make their own decisions concerning their dental care in the same way I’ve been making decisions for my patients for many years.
And there’s a bonus: In my book, readers get cues and tips I never gave my patients because they were my patients, and I was their dentist.
I’ve spent my life as an outsider, breaking the rules and talking about things usually left unspoken inside and outside my profession. I had no fear of consequences because I always spoke my truth and presented it in a well-documented package. Whatever the topic, no matter who the experts were and who had published what, once I acquired enough personal experience and knowledge, I went public with my conclusions if any of those preestablished dogmas lacked integrity and truth, and believe me, there is an array of them. I became an outspoken, out-of-the-box storyteller. No one could pay me to lie. Yes, I had my followers!
No doubt you reckon I didn’t find a sense of belonging among my colleagues either – or believe me, my articles don’t help matters. The only place I did find my tribe was in my office, among my patients. This wasn’t transference; it was my reality.
My patients have given me an only chance to be who I am. No masks, no shame, no fear. I hope you will be able to see here how important the patient can become to a medical professional regarding their treatment and why some of those in the field behave differently from the rest of the herd. If you are the right professional for the patient, you can have a productive, two-way relationship, which will go a long way toward giving the proper treatment.
For me, dentistry wasn’t about the money or the glory. It was way bigger. It was how I survived, and it made me thrive. Every day, I tried to repay patients for what they unknowingly gave me. I became the best professional I could be, only for them.
My goal as a dentist today, through the books I have written and the website I host, is to stick to the same principles; it is unique in the field. My goals are today,
➢ To clarify any dental problems patients may have, without going into too many technicalities, but enough that they can have a reference and make informed decisions.
➢ To explain the emotional piece in dental treatments and how it affects them and the dental team.
➢ To analyze the current state of the dental profession and what it has to offer in this new millennium.
➢ To analyze the current state of the dentist (you and me), and what we have to offer based on age and training. There can be considerable differences between seemingly “similar” dentists, and we know that better than anyone.
➢ To help patients become the real decision-makers in their treatment plans.
Consider the following:
Even when patients choose to be passive and “get out of the way” so that the necessary work can be carried out with the best possible outcome, they will still need to make decisions both at the beginning and as we move forward. We all know how those choices can be life changing.
On what can they base their choice of dentist: On a friend’s or their mother-in-law’s recommendation?
On how charming is the dentist? (That’s a dangerous one, not that the mother-in-law one isn’t.) On the location of the dental office? (Really?) Sometimes they feel reassured by a few reviews on Yelp, as if their dental treatment was the same as an Amazon purchase,. How about when they go on YouTube to decide if they should get such or such procedure done? Hmm…
To be clear, we’re not discussing a filling or a dental cleaning here. We’re talking about the oral rehabilitation they’ve needed for so long, which has been affecting their life regarding how they interact with others and chew their food. It will often cost them much more than an arm and a leg, but they can still live without them. In light of this, how long do they usually spend with the dentist before making what can be the decision of their life: forty-five minutes to an hour?
They will need more than a chat with a random dentist, more than Yelp; they need the tools to make a proper decision, the right decision for them. In the books. we discuss treatments, costs, and expectations – theirs, not the dentists. The read shows them how important defining their needs and expectations is. It underlines how they will have to consider often lowering those expectations and give up control to improve the long-term success of their dental treatment.
Our life is often driven by limiting beliefs about various issues and informed by our personal stories; our attitude toward dental health is no exception. Throughout my life, when speaking to patients from two distant regions within the same country, I often got mixed reactions and different requests. Our overall education, socioeconomic origin, and parents’ conversations during dinner when we were kids informed our choices regarding selecting one dental option over another or even choosing between two dentists. Here’s an example.
I had been practicing dentistry for fifteen years. A woman came into my office. She was around thirty-five and as pretty as she was austere. She said, “I want you to solve the problems in my mouth. I don’t care about the cost. I had a car accident six months ago. My eight-year-old son died. I hit my face against the steering wheel. ¨
I was appalled. It was possibly the lengthiest conversation she and I had during almost two years of dental treatment. In light of what she went through, I understood she wanted to be as passive as she could be and needed me to take full control of her dental plan. She neither wanted to talk nor had the willpower to make decisions. But what exactly did she want? I had to figure it out and do the best I could with the means I had. For over eighteen months, until we finished and she moved to Paris, I cared for her as if she had been my child – because she was. I was overwhelmed by the trust she had laid at my feet. During some surgeries, I cried when seeing the extent of the damage and later when seeing her healing process. By the end of the treatment, she had never smiled, engagedin a meaningful conversation, or asked questions. Needless to say, it was one of the most
challenging situations I had to face as a professional. Not caring and not getting emotionally involved was not an option.
Our patients are our children. When you go to the dentist, you become, more than ever, the child, the helpless creature with an added challenge, most of the time naked fear. Hence you can have unpredictable reactions, and we must be ready without judgment. This is the only way I found to care for patients; it became my approach also when writing dental implant books for patients or developing any solutions in the dental field.Dr. C.K. Labalen, DDS (2020). Show me your teeth. Introduction (pages 15-20). Published by C.K.
Labalen Inc.