You know how they say whatever you give to the universe, it will come back to you double? I shoulda been more careful….

This all started about a month ago, and it wasn’t even supposed to be a poem; more like silly prose set to music, but one thing led to another and the darn thing practically wrote itself. Not that it’s art in the sense of revealing the true nature of the human condition, but I thought it was pretty funny and so I shared my little ditty, “The Ballet of the Stray Hair” with a friend, who posted it over here at DentalEggs. You should go there, read it, and then continue on with this story.

Back already? Well, then.

A few weeks later, unsolicited, a little limerick popped up in my inbox from a professor at the college where I took my STATE BOARD EXAM! What do I do? I HAVE to publish it, right? Because if I don’t I’ll keep having those nightmares where my instructors find about a bajillion clicks of subgingival calculus and make me repeat my senior year over and over until finally I get to take my board exam and lo and behold the patient’s teeth are caked with green marijuana stain…. Wait, no, actually, that last part really did happen.

In the middle of all this, I was invited to the Townie Meeting, and something that didn’t happen in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas. It came home as a bug in the back of my brain (it could have been in a worse place, admit it, you thought it!). One of DentalTown’s original masters of meter told me that there were thousands! yes thousands of dental haiku written years ago, almost forgotten behind the cobwebbed threads of the message boards. And I received permission to repost a few of them here.

Hey Universe… thank you?

On to the poetry now.

 (be sure to click the link to see why this limerick’s subject is appropriate)

There practiced a dentist in Maine,
Who worked hard, hard as a train,
Esthetics was his love,
But he forgot to glove,
The Boards took his license again.

Dr. Raghu Puttaiah

These haiku are posted in the order of their original appearance. Think movie credits, but with only one actor. It’s kind of a soliloquy, actually.

OSHA training tape
must review for staff to watch
thrice I fall asleep

patient excited
will fix rotten teeth tuesday
oops forgot check book

open wide I say
the assistant turns to retch
oh god it’s anug

brown nubs, baked bean teeth
patient rinses with pepsi
between cigarettes

Lortab seven please
Ultracet is what you’ll get
no? then there’s the door

a long day for me
tears, red-faced child wants father
refer to pedo

“just so you know Doc,
I don’t like things in my mouth!”
Not even your brush?

your teeth are rotting
hurting, stinking, and all loose
“Can I get them bleached?”

two rough sedations
why did he eat that breakfast?
vomit in the sink

other doc’s patient
MFLI composite
should I steal him? No.

I hate most endo
boring snoring tedious
oh crap! broke a file.

started root canal
paid in full but won’t come back
on mom’s credit card

can you get it out?
well, there’s nothing left but root…
do I need a shot?

why do I do them?
the tooth is buried in bone
sadomasochist

zoom day white excel
left it in my trays too long
teeth are white, but ouch!

silver point canal
retreatment necessary
ultrasonic? yes.

perio abcess
white purulent exudate
debride and Trimox

smoke? get dry socket
I pack some gelfoam in there
maybe it helps some

appointments not kept
what is wrong with these people?
next time I’ll not show

what’s that dark shadow?
it’s peri-implantitis
periodontist

DENTURE PATIENT

This plate doesn’t fit!
he looks at the wall photo
I want ‘em like that!

Immediate teeth
he wanted them yesterday
expects perfection

I don’t understand!
why is this taking so long?
this stuff makes me gag!

my old teeth were fine!
except that they were rotten…
“You should have brushed them”

EXTRACTIONS

cold steel and sunshine
former captive relinquished
clink clank shiny bowl

cotton gauze poultice
damming the flow of red life
platelets, activate

By no means is this collection complete! These were my favorite dental-themed haiku, and even though I didn’t check them carefully they all seem to follow the traditional 5-7-5 syllable rule. If you adored these like I do and want more from those who haven’t given me permission to share, go on over to this DentalTown thread, become a member if you haven’t already, enjoy the sometimes poignant ramblings of a bygone time, maybe even hold a revival and start a new poetry post if you’re inspired thusly.

And I promise, no more poems about hair from me!

“Just this once; it’s okay.”

Does that sound like your practice? You know, you have a gaggy, bouncy kid who’s just about to tongue-thrust their way out of having those radiographs taken, but here comes Amazing Assistant to help you get a diagnostically acceptable image. SCORE!

The problem is that this never happens “just once.” I’ve seen the same person holding sensors in patients’ mouths dozens of times, and that’s when it becomes a problem. Yes, radiation is safer now that we’ve dialed it down and collimators make sure that there’s nothing scattering beyond the focused beam, but that doesn’t mean that we should be flippant about limiting exposure to our patients and most importantly, ourselves.

My best friend from high school could tell you not to hold those films in people’s mouths, too. She was a dental technician in the Navy and also worked for years in pediatric dental offices and orthodontics as an assistant, calming nervous children, helping them to have good dental experiences, and when she was exposing radiographs, sometimes she admits that she would make it easier on everyone if she would stay with the child while the x-rays were beaming through her hand.

She doesn’t have to tell you not to hold the films, though. She can just show you why you shouldn’t:

This is her right hand. Several years ago when she was doing laundry her finger caught on the dryer and “snapped.” This is important, sort of like when your patient tells you exactly what they were eating when their tooth broke – don’t you pay that the most attention of all? Because it was the darn dryer that was the problem….(!) Let’s be serious, though. Like you, her doctor really didn’t care what broke her finger, he wanted to know why it broke.

Turns out that she had developed a giant cell tumor in the first (proximal) phalange of her ring finger that had eaten everything except a small sliver of bone and that was what had snapped. These are very, very rare in small bones like those found in our fingers; most osteoclastomas happen in the larger bones like femurs and such. Hmmm.

Even though the tumor was benign, because of the damage done, the possibility of regrowth and other factors, the decision was made for my friend to have her ring finger amputated. I would have had her flip you the bird for effect but she no longer has a middle finger either…! (think about it…!)

So she was fortunate enough to stay in dentistry as a patient care coordinator for a few more years as she recovered but is now working towards her master’s degree for speech pathology. While she doesn’t seem totally convinced that excessive radiation exposure caused her to lose her finger, she doesn’t count it out for even a second.

And neither do I.

Losing a finger may be anecdotal evidence about the dangers of radiation, but it’s enough for me to feel like enforcing what we already know to be true.

Please share this story with those you care about, even if it makes you feel like the Radiation Nazi.