January 2009

A Dentist’s profession is thankless they say and quite rightly too. The thought of a Dentist brings up to many an image of a nerdy guy who is hell bent on causing pain by all possible means. Many hate the idea of going to the Dentist itself and believe with conviction that all they can gain through a Dentist’s appointment is pain.

The real fact of the matter is that Dentists are in one of the most demanding professions and face a lot of hardships and problems and still are always beaming with a smile.

Let’s take a look how a Dentist’s profession differs greatly from any other profession in the world.

Any business in the world would be glad to have more customers. They strive hard to gain customers from every possible place and make presentations and advertising all over the place.

Dentists in contrast are delivering lectures and speeches on dental hygiene to create awareness to prevent the dental problems itself. No other profession in the world strives as hard to eliminate its need itself more than Dentists. Many dental awareness programs reach the general public through various mediums such as television, hoardings, free dental camps which are just trying to improve your dental health.

One can argue that a Dentist is a health professional and it’s his duty to spread oral awareness but a careful analysis will show that by creating oral awareness they are directly reducing the pool of possible patients and in fact are doing a service to the community though it is affecting their own business.

A Dentist has to often face the negative perception of the patients and it becomes very hard to convince patients otherwise when they have a strong negative perception of dental health and/or Dentists.

Dentistry also differs from other health professions by being physically demanding as well. Most of the procedures are time consuming and tedious. The dentist has to spend half an hour or even an hour or more for many procedures which is physically and mentally demanding. Patients waiting in the clinic do not understand this and question the reason for a long waiting period.

A Dentist will need to perform to the best of his ability which requires quite a bit of time and physical stress and mental concentration and will need to repeat this process for each patient. Un-cooperating patients might thus make the Dentist lose his temper a bit and be a bit harsh which results in the patient labeling him as a loser for the rest of his life.

It is important for patients to understand the various challenges and obstacles of a Dentist to appreciate the Dental profession. The least a patient can do to help a Dentist is by co-operating, being courteous and by keeping their appointments.

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