It's been a tough year 2013 being a dentist and I've been brainstorming marketing ideas.
As you may or may not know, a large part of my patients are Japanese.
2 newspapers have asked me to contribute monthly columns, Weekly Biz and Daily Sun.
The Weekly Biz column is in English while the Daily Sun column is translated into Japanese by my SuperStar Assistant, Keiko.
So I'm starting out 2014 with committing to post the articles I've written for the Japanese newspapers here as well. I have a whole bunch of them from the past but I figure I'd post the more recent ones as I write them.
These will be all in English. If you do wish to read them in Japanese, check out Daily Sun. It's free and available in the Japanese-frequented haunts like Mitsuwa in Edgewater, NJ; Sunrise Mart all over Manhattan; Dainobu in Midtown, etc...
Other healthcare professionals also have ongoing articles in those papers but (patting myself on the back), my patients have told me that mine are fun to read and they're not so serious and scary. I'll have to take their word for it, I can't read Japanese.
And always, these stories are gathered from decades of being a dentist. Over the years, these stories have details changed or eloquently added onto so any similarities to actual patients are to be disregarded. They are only told and printed to make a dental point or lesson.
Enjoy the reading and arigato!!
I Know What You Had for Breakfast
One of the things that I’ve
learned as a dentist which I don’t think other people know how to do, or would
want to do, is the ability to identify previously chewed up foods that are
stuck between patient’s teeth. As yucky
as that sounds, it’s actually useful because it lets me know when the last time
the patient flossed or brushed their teeth was. I can just picture all my
readers making a face just about now. This is not exactly what you wanted to
read about opening the newspaper today, right?
I had a new patient come in
complaining about a hole in her back tooth that needed a filling. When I looked
into her mouth, the hole was so big that there was a sesame seed stuck in
there. When I asked her when the last time she had eaten sesame seeds was, she
looked surprised. “A sesame seed? That’s not possible, that would’ve been breakfast
2 days ago when I had a sesame bagel. It’s probably a strawberry seed from this
morning.”
My dear readers, it wasn’t a
cute dainty strawberry seed, and it wasn’t from this morning. It was definitely
a sesame seed and it was from 2 days ago. The hole she came in for ended up so
big and deep that after cleaning it out, the cavity was into the nerve and the
tooth needed a root canal and a crown. But
even after all that, she was still convinced it was a strawberry seed.
Most of the time, in the
office, patients are polite and go to the restroom and clean their teeth before
sitting in the dental chair. Others just say with a smile, “I’ve just come from
lunch so if you find anything in there, haha, sorry!”
If there are areas in your
mouth that tend to catch food, please let your dentist know. Also, during an exam, your dentist or
hygienist will point out areas that you are collecting food. Be sure to clean
those areas extra well, pay careful attention to flossing and brushing
especially after meals. If you don’t have a toothbrush handy, swishing or
rinsing vigorously with water after meals will help as well. Areas that always collect food in between
teeth may sometimes be fixed with replacing a filling or a crown to tighten the
spots. Areas that collect food on a
regular basis over time may lead to cavities or gum problems. So while I find it interesting that after all
these years of being a dentist, I am able to identify food bits in my patient’s
mouths, I’d much rather not see any at all!
