Category Archives: Dental

Today Kim and Loretta at my office got a nice compliment from the folks at Medical Services.  The regional director for dental services told them they were very efficient and great at organizing and making appointments and arranging transportation, etc, etc, etc.  Now, I hope they don’t let it go to their heads! 

Then they reminded me that September is job performance appraisal month and SALARY review month in our office.  I don’t know why they thought they had to bring that up!  As if I would forget such an important time of the year!!!

So I suggested that we needed to work on increasing our production and Kim said that because of her work on our behalf with Medical Services that she has 60 patients that are needing appointments.  I hope she doesn’t book them all on the same day.

Now, aside from the fact that they will probably be reading this since they have been introduced to my web page, and they may think that I am trying to simply flatter them so that they will forget about the salary  review, they are some of the most wonderful and invaluable staff members I have.  They are worth their weight in gold.  I’m not rich enough to pay them that though – even if they are the skinniest ones in the office!

Today was my first day back at school – to two of the four schools the Prince Albert School Based Dental Program works in.  I saw about 45 kids all together – got them examined so the dental therapy team can now go ahead and start their work. 

The two groups of kids turned out to be fairly different this year.  In the one school is a class of what are called “transitional students”.  These are kids that are having a hard time making it in the regular school program.  I imagine there are a lot of reasons why.  One of the things that I have come to recognise over years of treating people’s teeth is that how people treat their teeth is a reflection of how they treat themselves in other ways.  If they like and appreciate themselves as people of value, then they tend to look after their bodies as well.  This transitional class had some of the worst teeth that I have seen for awhile. 

The second school is the one where we have invested most of our time and energy over the past few years.  The kids we see are sometimes back to see us for several years in a row.  Many of these kids had no dental work to be done other than regular preventive stuff.  They come in and are very comfortable with the dental team – and they feel good about themselves.  Maybe we are making a small dent in the community.  One can always hope.

Today I realized again just what a great staff I have working for me.  One of my staff members has been waiting to see if she would possibly get into the School of Dental Therapy.  She applied a long time ago – just after January.  She dosen’t fit the ethnic group that the school tries to choose most of the students from – which caused some resentment on her part – but that is another story.  She has been at the top of the waiting list to get in since May.  I knew this and although I would really hate to see her go, it would be a great opportunity for her.  She is one of the most capable assistants we have in our office.  If it were not for the cost and the time she would have to commit to studying she might have applied to the College of Dentistry.  She could have done it too.

Last week she got the call – a place was now open for her.  A chance to increase her earning power to twice what it is now.  She turned the school down.  Her reasons – she has too many other things on the go right now that she can not just drop – like car payments.  But one of her reasons was that there are no dental assistants to hire anywhere in our city.  One of the other assistants in the office is pregnant.  J did not want to leave our office so short staffed. 

Such loyalty from our staff is a precious commodity.  I don’t know if I can find a way to show enough appreciation to her.  Next year she will probably go.  She’s irreplacable but we will have a year to look for another bright young woman to take her place.  J you are the best ! Thanks.

Yesterday was an interesting day at work. It was a day when I had to get some things done that I was struggling with. Some technical glitches like a broken root canal file and a difficult appliance to fit. Now this day could have been totally frustrating but it turned out to be a day well spent. I’m not one of those people that glibly say that I prayed and God fixed everything. I was working hard but I also know God is always there with me.

The root canal file broke the last time I was working on the tooth. So I had to tell the patient and get her back to attempt to get it out. The cutting edge of the file is embedded in the surface of the nerve chamber. (That is how we file away the surface to get a smooth cone shaped interior that will accept the filling and have it fit snuggly.) Then the file is turned, removing the interior surface leaving it smooth. Only this time the tip of file remained embedded in the dentin surface. It kind of blocks the canal when this happens and sometimes we just leave it and fill up to the broken file. This piece was broken right up in the entry to the canal so I couldn’t do that. It had to come out or else the tooth had to be removed.

I worked for awhile trying to get down past the file with no success. Then I got out this little gadget that produces ultrasonic vibrations and it worked. Out came the little piece of file just when I was about to give up and explain to the patient that I was going to have to take her tooth out.

You would think that would be the end of the story – no way! I had to finish the smoothing so the root canal filling would fit well. I picked up another file – the same size- Brand New so it shouldn’t break right? One single turn of the file and I was back to square one. Out came the ultrasonic gadget again and again it came out. A huge silent prayer of thanks went up to God on my part!

The appliance fit well too. Finally after two remakes! And I was able to help my locums dentist with a difficult extraction and show her an easier way. And the student learned a good lesson in not jumping to conclusions – took his time to diagnose a case that was difficult to sort out. So all in all it was a good day.

When I was in Vancouver, my cousin asked me if I really liked being a dentist. Yeah, there are some days when I love it – and not just the easy days when nothing goes wrong. I never have to work alone – God is always there. He made the stuff I work on so shouldn’t I expect a little help from Him when I need it!

Its been a day! Up by 6:00, to work around 7:30. Most of my morning was spent working on a 3 rooted lower wisdom tooth. The guy(who owned the tooth till I wrested it from him) was big enough to do little old me some serious damage. Oh the power of being a woman with tools! Makes men just do as they’re told!

One of the skills I picked up on the Congo was the ability to deal with most surgical extractions and stuff like that. In this province a patient needing to see one of the oral surgeons can face a wait of up to 6 months. Sometimes the wait is too long and I get talked into helping someone out of their misery or my partner will ask me ” Do you want to give it a try?” and how can I turn down a challenge? Some days like today my hands get quite a workout.

I made it home tonight in time to eat and run up to Sara’s soccer game. They beat Lakewood from Saskatoon but all the goals happened after I had to leave the game to go to the church executive board meeting. Leo is the chair and just arrived back from Saskatoon in time for the meeting. I guess we accomplished what we had to but I’m getting tired of meetings. Leo is watching some movie about a crooked cop now with Patrick and a friend and Christian is downstairs watching another movie with his friend. I have about had enough of this day and am ready to hit the sack. Good night!

Kevin at thehomelessguy.net is an interesting guy to read. He has posted some interesting links and one in particular caught my eye called Hidden Homeless I guess partly because I see the kind of dental needs the author describes in the article in the high needs kids on our much smaller city. These kids are not necessarily “homeless” in the technical sense. Most of them have homes of some sort but are very transient so never stay in one place long enough to get complete care and never build up a relationship with a dentist. Their parents may never have had much for care and chances are unless the cycle is broken, their children won’t be much better off. In a way I think the lack of dental care is just a symptom of much more urgent problems – like insufficient shelter and food, sometimes addictions in the parents and sometimes just fatigue on the part of parents who have too few resources and too little energy to do a good job of parenting. Most adolescents with poor dental health also have other hygiene issues and I think they just don’t see themselves as someone worth spending time on. That feeling, I suppose becomes a vicious circle and then they will have kids that don’t feel very good about themselves.

Wonder of wonders! The lost binder has been found. Grace’s track coach picked it up. Why oh why did he not tell her on Friday? Anyway one should not complain about an answer to prayer. Grace is much relieved.

Today has been one of those days when I alternately acted like an ogre or the tooth fairy. Had to give six kids today the lecture – you know – the one that goes “If you don’t like your teeth then go ahead and let them rot but don’t ask me to leave your braces on in that pool of plaque”. Two were seriously threatened with having the braces off. Now that was the ogre side. I’m trying to think of to whom I was nice enough to be classed as a tooth fairy. Maybe the poor guy who had let his teeth get way beyond repair and on whom we took out the remaining 6. Some days being a dentist can be depressing.

Actually, having a vivid sense of being called to do what I do has given my life a sense of adventure more often than a sense of despair.

Well tonight I am tired. I got up at 4:00 am to drive Sara to catch the van for her school trip to Drumheller. Oh the joys of being in a small school! The whole class of 10 grade 8’s talked the teachers into taking a small detour from Drumheller to Calgary so they could go up the Tower(to make the trip of some educational value) and then go to the Chinook Mall for shopping, then back to Drumheller for more educational stuff. Quelle priviledge d”etre dans une ecole francaise! (Not sure how to get the accents into a blogging site). Anyways, once a person is up at that beautiful hour of the day and work starts in less than four hours, there isn’t’ much to do but stay up.

Today was “sedation day” at work. My assistants hate it and I can’t say that I love it all that much either but somehow trying to treat under sedation seems a better choice than having the child wait the year or so it takes to get them in for a general anaesthetic when they are in pain. Today we had one real good experience out of five. Aside from the extremely hard work of holding onto a small body, wriggling, full of energy, while doing something as precise as a filling, being spit on and bit, today went as well as could be expected. The medication may erase their memories of the experience but not mine or their mothers. I wish there were more general anaesthesia facilities or more hospital time, or maybe just parents who knew how to look after their kids in such a way as to actually spare them the agony of rotten and abscessed teeth. If anyone out there reading this has children Please don’t let them be constantly eating snacks or pop and juice and please brush their teeth for them -whether they like it or not starting from the day the first tooth comes in. It’s just part of loving your kids. That is the word from my soap box today.

Sometimes it would be easier not to work on kids but I can’t escape that part of my calling. Maybe its the fact that they hurt too often because we adults just haven’t cared enough, or been too tired or too wrapped up in our own problems to do a good job of being parents. They are the innocent victims. Maybe it’s the guilt from having inflicted some hurt on my own children. God forgive us parents. Help us to keep trying to love and do the right thing for our children and all the children you put in our lives.

I also have to celebrate with another of my kids tonight. She won first yesterday in the Midget 100 meter dash for her school(St Mary High School) and today won her heat in the city track meet and placed fourth over all. She came up with second place since it was a competition between the public and separate schools. Way to go, Grace!