How's your grooming?

Dr Mark Hassed

A while ago I was sent to counsel a dentist whose work was not up to par. This dentist made lots of mistakes, had filings dropping out all the time and many, many unhappy patients.

When I met with the dentist I couldn't help but notice the way he shaved. He had missed whole areas of his face. He had stray whiskers everywhere and his sideburns were uneven.

What this told me was that the dentist had zero attention to detail. All he had to do was look at his face in the mirror and he could see what a poor job of shaving he was doing. But, he chose not to do that.

Each morning, I presume, he ran the razor over his face and then walked out of the bathroom without ever examining the result.

If you can't even see stray whiskers all over your face then you have no hope at all of seeing decay in the distal proximal box on a first molar. Or seeing a root chip you left behind. Or polishing a filling nicely.

So, the question is, how's your attention to detail?

If it's not so good it would be a very good thing to practice and work on.I reckon that 90% of the mistakes dentists make could be avoided if the dentist really paid attention.

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