Cute Dentists

Allow me to digress a bit for today if only it can help you relate better to my ideas about how we can be pharmacists that are more effective. And my focus today is on dentists, and how they have managed to remain afloat in this turbulent times. We have to give them that, our dentists really make up for their scary job by being some of the prettiest people in the medical and dental, and let me add pharmaceutical field. So I thought what a paradox-sweet pain for the patient. And now for the record, the beautiful girls seem to have pleasure holding the sharpest things on earth, (made of the toughest steel, I guess) on the faces of horrified patients. Well, at least the beautiful can also inflict pain with gusto but why did they all go to dental school. I must admit, however, that I never visit a dentist until it is too late, and I keep wondering when I’ll ever learn. I don’t think you will be surprised if I tell you I never look forward to visiting a dentist, neither do I enjoy the sounds that patients make as they are worked on as I nervously wait for my turn.

Dentists are more closely knit than pharmacists, who are even more closely knit than doctors are. And for doctors, it is a man-eat-man world, where ugly differences and needles shoving eclipse all that they have in common. If they were half as close as dentists were, KMA would have been one of the most powerful unity of purpose institutions, with an extraordinary potential for utter ruthlessness. Well, that can be a blessing or a curse, depending on what side of their possible negative energies you were going to be.

Well, as I seem to say, I don’t mind dating a dentist; they are one fly crop anyway. I highly recommend you hook up with one of them if you are not hitched yet. Did I hear somebody laugh? My reasons, as you can guess are very sketchy, and border much more on the elitist way in which the carry themselves. On top of wielding some of the scariest and sharpest metallic objects, they always have designer cookbooks in their purses. And they don’t carry around those books for nothing, they do what it says and to perfection. They like very tasty foods, some being sugary and some being vey sugary. And another one that blows me off is that they do not carry over their work to social meetings like many so-called professionals. I will be curtly surprised if one sickens me with the tales the different kinds of mouths they experience (let me not say see) everyday over dinner. Be prepared though for a flossing session after the last pieces of cutlery have been cleared off the table. But that is one little inconvenience when compared to our other colleagues idea of a date. I’m talking about those who talk about fine needle aspiration, spinal anesthesia, liver tissue biopsy or a patient with some interesting presentation that needed ‘consul’s’ or ‘senior registrar’s’ clever but unconventional intervention, but at a cultural night or in some very important date in some up market restaurant. I’m talking about that kind of talk that will prompt him to remove a notebook jacket and start making notes. That is one gross way to impress a man on a date, but as one close friend confides in me, it works as wicked as it is. The gentleman will find a reason to go through the books after the date, just in time for his call and ultimately impress the big man during the ward rounds, who himself comes to the ward with almost a sole intention of impressing the young ones. The mutual satisfaction that comes out of this all is enough aphrodisiac for all and everyone wins. What a happy ending!

One other thing that you probably didn't know about dentists is, the boys are so into physical fitness and good grooming; they actually go to the salon, not the ordinary barbershops. They love their wrist massages, and wear well manicured nails as they do for all the appendages that a skin can have (name four such). Girls listen, those boys cook, they wax, they spend, but they also earn big. They make their money, from working in at least two different towns, one of them being Nairobi, almost every day of every week of every month before fatigue sets in forcing them to slow down. They also like cars with feminine looks; those guys are so in touch with their feminine side! In the dentist circles, you are almost a loser if you stick in the public service for more than three years, for the pharmacists five, and for the doctors something much more.

So what do I really admire about dentists, that I think we can learn from them?

One is that they so mind their business. Their work does not come in the way of resources that bring so much friction for those who are involved, the reformists and the conformists. They do not ask to many questions about the hands that are found stuck in the till if they ever see, but just choose to look the other way. They prefer being on the blind spot of the administrators field of vision, and can disappear for days, and even weeks on end without being noticed.
Two, they do not engage in fights that are not worth fighting probably because they know the kind of tools they have at their disposal should the provocation become too much and the need to use them arises.
Three, they know their intrinsic value, and do not need to explain to anybody anything. They do not spend too much energy proving their relevance, they know their relevance and that counts. If you shout to them, they do not shout back, so you are left with two options: continue shouting alone indefinitely or forever hold your peace.
Four, they know that their job is not for the faint hearted. Who else injects their patients so many times before they can work on them?
Five, they are so elite and guarded to keep their four main secrets secret.

I want to be a dentist, or at least, have the dentists’ attitude towards life, for a change. I guess there is be something you might have learnt from me today, or at least from the dentists.
Have you?