The law..The wheels..& extra strawberry

Recently, there is a serie of events that occured as I was thinking about them and I thought.....hmm funny

I've been thinking in the clinics for a while now that I had to explain to pts about dental diseases and more often than not, they got lost with my words (seems to have that effect), especially with this perio pt I had. He doesnt have a single clue about teeth but stubbornly said that I havent done my job cos the tooth wasnt healing. Now how am I gonna explain to him the Endo-Perio lesion?

we had a lecture on the jaw joint around last week and the lecturer mentioned about educating pts as a part of ur treatment. He gave an example that its kinda stupid for a pt whos walking in with a jaw joint problem to be constantly chewing gum.
and I thought...why would ppl chew gum? I never had the urge to chew one even if it was offered occasionally by my frens

Lo and behold.... I got a show bag with the dental diseases picture cardboard thingy and a truck load of chewing gums (sugar free of course)
I used the cardboard diagrams that afternoon with the pt and now I'm impulsively chewing gum. (strawberry flavour is pretty good)

While stuck at the traffic light, the thought came to me......maybe I shouldn't be chewing gum while I'm riding a bike (chewing*)... what if i was caught by a surprise...say by a car or something and accidentally swallowed the gum (still chewing*)......I'd be as good as dead (the jaw joint is getting a bit sore now*)

sori to disappoint u but I didnt swallow the gum as I was thinking about it but I pondered.
If u have the gum stuck in ur throat, no amount of CPR is gonna save u. so what can i do?
there has to be an answer to this or the next person I see who swallowed chewing gum is gonna die in a matter of minutes.

even though it may sounds stupid now, I thought I had a solution at the time.
I came up with tracheostomy.
I'd always wanted to do one...u know...poke the biro tube through the cartilage thingy like in the movie.
but then again...would I do that if I see a person needing one.
cos even though they will die anyway without my help, they can conveniently blame that my lousy technique accelerated it.

......"please save my son. he's a good boy. he's only 12. I dunno what i'm gonna do without him....blah blah blah", said the weeping, begging mum
"ok now I'm not confident with this but I might be able to help him"
"anything...plssss...anything at all"
"stand back maam....and watch....a live tracheostomy"
2 mins later --> dead
weeping mum turns into a feisty tigress..."u killed him !!!! I'm gonna sue u !!! "
Its hard to do good deeds sometimes in this world we live in.

This week... a lecture on medico-legal issues. (see what I mean?)
The answer to my puzzle. I dun have any duty of care to that person whatsoever.
There is a good samaritan law that protects me if I decide to help given that I do what I'm comfortable of doing ie. help within my limit of training

so tracheostomy is a no no :-(

Note: Its prob more accurate to describe what I intended to do as cricothyroidotomy rather than tracheostomy

Thank you

I know that being a dentist I probably never will be as appreciated or receive thank you cards/presents from patients as much as my dad who saves ppl from cancer on the daily basis
but todays the first time I've got something from my patient (theres always a first time)...my denture patient...maybe my last denture patient for the rest of the course
The act of giving and words of encouragement meant so much to me emotionally
cos its reminding me that I'm doing goods, I'm doing the right thing and I'm making a difference

and then I find that

patients give presents cos they appreciate your work and whatever uve done was life-changing
In dentistry I only see denture patients do so......
other than that, maybe aesthetic dentistry...like Dr. Terry Wong
but ppl dun give presents for ur fillings or 10yrs worth of monitoring, fluoride and check-ups.

sadly, denture is something we r moving away from...

.

I'm good... full stop
not gonna let anyone tell me otherwise

Religious moment

Regardless of our religious believes,
all dental students pray together in front of the Xray developing machine during endo clinics
5 mins of silence and faith
u cannot continue working, u cannot do anything, u just pray

and hope that after 5 mins when the tiny black thing comes out; there's no underexposure, overexposure, superimposition, elongation, cone cut, underfill, overfill......or missed the tooth altogether......

Don't Look

Don't look cos u wont find it......whatever it is that ur looking for

Patient's phone number...
I swear I wrote it in my record notebook...
when I was calling the patient...
fliping through the pages, over and over and over...couldnt find it
got home and there it was... staring at my face

bloody hell...
one minute, the tooth model was in my hand...the next minute, it was gone
kept looking over the pile of models 2-3 times...couldnt find it

Went back at the end of the day
there it was, in the very same pile I looked for ealier
5 minutes after I found my model, I lost my Listerine pen

couldnt do anything right today

A nice quote from Dr. John Matthews (ADA President)
"I hope that by the end of these 5 years, u'll realise . If u do it for the money, u wont' last. u'll find that u'll burn out pretty quickly....... u have to believe that ur doing something good"

Arms and Legs

I once again wish for my dream lost-property-locating device
If the bike wheels are my legs and badminton rackets are my arms, then I'm an amputee today

The loss of my two Nanospeed 7000, together with my badminton membership came to me as a terrible shock this afternoon...no warning
I have totally no account of what happened to it since the last time I used it, which was last saturday....obviously cos its not something I would notice on a daily basis
but somewhere between the badminton court, safeway and my house, the rackets had gone walk-about

Apart from eating, sleeping and procrastinating, the next closest thing to a routine is playing badminton on the weekend.
Now that it has gone I have no idea what I'm gonna do. I feel like a half broken man

I've gone thru the 5 stages of grief
Denial - I was in denial, frantically searching around the house 3 times and at safeway and at the badminton court. I was looking for it in the toilet. Any sane person would surely call me stupid
Anger - angry, I was, for being so careless and took it for granted
Bargaining - I secretly wished that if the rackets turn up, I would stop youtubing and study hard for the rest of the night (which I know doesnt sound like much...im not good at bargaining)
Depression....what can I say
and Acceptance...

In times like these, I know what my mum would say
she would tell me to do what I found to be the hardest thing to do which is letting go.
but the faster I accept that the better off Ill be
cos as expensive as it maybe, its merely an object which is replaceable

looking on the bright side, I left my melb uni badminton club membership and the sport centre swipe card with the rackets.
A half decent person who picked it up would prob know where to return it to....*fingers crossed*