Kick in the teeth

Shelley Walia

The Hippocratic oath, taken by all physicians, prescribes that doctors practise their profession ethically, with empathy, patience and sympathetic regard for the patient’s pain and discomfort. A recent visit to a government dental clinic in one of the foremost hospitals of the country must have made Hippocrates turn in his grave because my experience was the very antithesis of the oath.

After a preliminary x-ray, I was told that some of my molars, commonly known as wisdom teeth, were to be extracted.  Being a rather formidable surgery involving four molars, I walked to the clinic on a blistering May afternoon to seek reassurance as much as to confirm which teeth exactly were to be bear the brunt. 

A young lady dentist at the clinic first turned her attention to another tooth spreading infection that required root canal treatment. I daresay she was rather clumsy in handling my poor tooth. But what was blatantly galling was her demand that I go down to the first floor for an x-ray in the midst of the treatment. With my mouth open fully, and a needle sticking out of my tooth, I stumbled into the x-ray room with a good deal of difficulty. I wondered, feeling rather embarrassed going up and down the staircase, why advanced dental clinics did not have a mobile x-ray machine on the spot when needed.

What became even more infuriating was the non-stop banter between the lady dentist and her male assistant over my gaping mouth, followed by a very involved, lengthy conversation on the cell phone giving me the feeling that my treatment was secondary to the assistant's more “important” pedestrian concerns. With the cell phone in one gloved hand, he had the gall to use the suction pump with the other. Why wear gloves in that case?

After this ordeal was over, I attempted to seek reassurance from the senior doctor about those four teeth that had to be extracted, which for me was a somewhat frightening and daunting prospect. As he had previously written the technical numbers of the teeth on my card, I asked him whether he could advise me which precise teeth he was planning to operate upon. “Well," he said, “they are mentioned on your card which you can read yourself.” “But doctor saab,” I said, “since I have no idea which teeth are represented by the numbers 38 or 28, and so on, could you please gently tap the teeth so that I precisely know which ones you intend to remove.” “Well you can feel them with your tongue” came the rather brusque and uncouth reply. 

Although I maintained my composure, deep in my heart I knew that silence was the affliction of our society. I realised that we collectively become answerable for the ill-bred professionals who undermine the already declining image of the medical profession. Half a patient's distress, I thought, would have been alleviated by the sensitive conduct of the doctor. The maintenance of a warm and empathetic relationship between the patient and his doctor, the inculcation of social courtesy and human fellow feeling is the first and the foremost lesson that needs to be imparted in any medical instruction. “A good dentist never gets on your nerves,” goes an old saying.