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