If you could eliminate one thing in the world, what would it be?

I don't find dental work particularly painful, what I can't stand is how they force unnecessary dental procedures on unsuspecting patients, under the guise of medical authority that it has to be done, to line their own pockets.

I can't speak for all dentists but not all dentists are like that. The ones you describe tend to be common in corporate chains like Aspen Dental. Can happen at private offices but less likely so.

At the end of the day, dentists do provide necessary services to get people out of pain, and we deserve to be compensated for a much needed service.

--Michael D. Clarke

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Even using pain as an example; 10 years ago I had a tooth pulled and the dentist tried pushing two bottles of Opioid pain-killers on me "two bottles for $80, it will get you through the pain." I didn't buy them and took 4 ibuprofen and barely felt anything. A few years later the "opioid crisis" is in the news and Dentists are one of the primary culprits in pushing them on people.

Ok, this is new to me.  Dentists don't make money off prescribing opiates?  Pharmacists do? We just print off a prescription.

I tend to advise ibuprofen and plain Tylenol and alternate between both meds. Never really had any issues or complaints from patients.

But I live in Canada and not many dentists here prescribe opiates. The most I'll ever prescribe are Tylenol 3's but those are pretty shitty opiates and don't do much for pain relief.

--Michael D. Clarke

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I actually think this explains the high suicide rate among dentists. After so many years of being dishonest with their patients, their conscious gets to them, they have a hard-time living with themselves, and eventually off themselves.

It's because of the high stress of running a business, dealing with competitors, staff issues and dealing with unruly, entitled patients. People seem to treat us like a retail store or a McDonalds. I had a new patient who asked if I could "price match" to another dental office because he couldn't afford an extraction and he refused antibiotics/painkillers. I'm thinking "Dude, we're not a BestBuy". I told him we couldn't help him. He ended up giving us a bad online review. Entitled patients like this are the reason for high suicide rates. 

Or patients who don't show up for regular cleanings yet come in at the last minute for emergencies just before Xmas holidays and demanding treatment. Like dude, why didn't you show up before the problem got worse?

The expectation to be perfect, yet we are dealing with the human body which is variable, unpredictable, and complex. People threatening board complaint/lawsuits/bad reviews if they don't get a refund or discount. Stress of getting sued or getting a complaint.

Also, staff issues. And there is a shortage of staff and the dentist have no choice but to acquiesce to their demands to keep them around. Sometimes, you get a toxic staff member and that makes things difficult in an already demanding job.

But hey, at least I don't go around killing lions.

--Michael D. Clarke

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