(I study dentistry at a dental clinic in France. The dental clinic is split into what we call services: surgery, prosthetics, urgent care, etc. That means that a patient who wants the teeth we remove to be replaced by a prosthesis needs to coordinate his appointments with both services. It’s more complicated than just going to a regular dentist, but in France clinics make you pay exactly what healthcare reimburses, making it free for everyone, apart from “better” acts, like implants. The basic stuff is 100% covered, though, and that’s why poor people come here. Every service is clearly labeled. I have this interaction while working in the surgery service, with a patient who has six teeth left, and NO prosthesis.)

Me: “So, according to your file, we have to remove those three teeth.”

Patient: “But you will replace them, right?”

Me: “It says in your file that you have an appointment in prosthesis; they will take care of it.”

Patient: “But I want you to do it now! It’s in two months!”

(It is rather urgent that his teeth be removed, as they have already become infected in the past.)

Me: “Ah, well, then, we can remove the teeth now, and you can go to your planned appointment. In fact, it’s not that bad; we require about two to three months of healing before we can make a fully-functional prosthesis.”

Patient: “What will I do without my teeth, though? I’d rather stay like this and come back in two months!”

(The teeth we’re talking about are premolars. His front teeth, the incisors, are long gone, as are his back teeth, his molars. The premolars serve no purpose if they’re not surrounded or faced by other teeth.)

Me: “Are you sure? They could get infected again and cause you a lot of pain. They’re of no use to you, you can’t eat with them, and we don’t see them when you smile.”

Patient: “I want to keep them! What would I do without them?”

(I don’t know, the exact same thing you’ve been doing for the past ten years with your six remaining rotten teeth? He ended up leaving and refused any care. Bet he’ll b**** and moan when, in two months, they tell him they can’t do a nice prosthesis for two other months…)

(When I was a teenager I had two fillings put into separate back molars. The dentist didn’t wait until I was properly numb to do it, and both of them ended up coming out within the next few days while I was just watching TV. My family wasn’t exactly the best and didn’t believe me when I told them they came out, so I didn’t go back. Fast-forward to about a year ago. I’m out on a date, and I bite down with one of the teeth and the whole thing shatters into five pieces. I make an emergency appointment with the only dentist in town that can take me on such short notice — the dentist from before — and suffer for a day or two until I go in. When the dentist comes in and asks me why I’m there, I tell her about the tooth being shattered. She visibly rolls her eyes at my expense and takes a look, only to freeze in shock.)

Dentist: “Oh! It’s actually shattered. You know, that happens when you don’t get your cavities filled.”

Me: “I’d had it filled before, but it wasn’t done right and came out the next day. I was under eighteen, and my family wouldn’t bring me back.”

Dentist: “And you didn’t eat anything you weren’t supposed to?”

Me: “No, it wasn’t my first filling, and I followed the instructions.”

Dentist: “Well, whoever did the filling obviously didn’t know what they were doing.”

Me: “Well, you’re not too far off the mark, since you’re the one who did it.”

(She suddenly remembered me and actually looked embarrassed. She never apologized, but she was extra careful with explaining my options and giving me a crown — making sure I was properly numb this time — and when I went to pay, she’d knocked down the price a bit. This isn’t the only horrible story I have about her, but this was the last time I let her work on me. I’m glad we finally got a new practice in town and I can go somewhere else.)

I go to the dentist to get my wisdom teeth out. I have had two shots already and the laughing gas on, no big problem. 

He starts trying to pull one tooth out that grew in crooked and I tell him that it is hurting. He gives me another shot, which should deaden it right then. He tells me not to be such a baby. Then, instead of being gentle and rocking it back and forth to loosen it before pulling it, he grabs a pair of pliers and snatches the tooth straight out of the gum!

He starts doing that with my other one on the same side. I bite the fire out of him. He has the nerve to tell my mom that I “need to be more prepared for a dental visit.” Not when one almost snatches your gums out of your mouth!  

I go straight from that dentist to one that treated me when I was a child. He is super nice, and he helps straighten out what the other one did to me. He takes one look in my mouth and says, “When was the last time you went to a dentist?” I reply, “I just came from one.”

When I was eight years old, my older sister’s school had an anti-drug campaign. She came home from school one day and lectured me to never, ever take drugs. I looked up to my sister, so I solemnly promised her I wouldn’t.

About a week later, my dad took me to the dentist to get some baby teeth pulled. I was alone in the room with the dentist while my dad was in the waiting room. The dentist told me he was giving me some analgesia. I asked what that meant, and he explained that it was a drug that would make me not feel any pain.

I told him, “No, no drugs,” and refused to let him near me with the analgesia. For some reason, he did not go out to the waiting room to confer with my dad. Instead, he went ahead and pulled three teeth from an eight-year-old girl without using analgesia or any pain relief.

After a few minutes of him pulling my teeth, the burglar alarm went off in the clinic. There was no break-in, though. Apparently, my screams of pain perfectly mimicked the sound of breaking glass, fooling the alarm system. We never went back to that clinic.

(I am the patient in this story. After many, many years of not receiving dental treatment, I finally get good dental insurance and make an appointment with a dentist. After the x-rays come back, I have in total 14 cavities and severe sensitivity in a majority of my teeth, and I need one root canal. After many visits, I am finally down to the root canal. So far, for a majority of my appointments, the dentist has been rough, short-tempered, and pissy. I am on a time limit to get all this work done, so I just live with it. Sadly, my final appointment does not go well.)

Dentist: *jerks my head* “Oh, s***.”

Me: “Everything okay?”

Dentist: “We are going to have to stop here and send you to someone else.”

Me: “Why?”

Dentist: “I broke a drill bit in one of your roots.”

Me: “I am fine with being sent to someone else, but my insurance ends tomorrow; this root canal needs to be done.”

Dentist: “Don’t worry; it will be done. We are sending you to our specialist. He is really good at root canals.”

Me: *skeptical* “Okay, as long as it gets done.”

(Next day:)

Specialist Dentist: “I don’t know how they managed to break a bit in your root, but the good news is that it broke on the torque, so it sealed the root. We can leave it in and just finish the root canal.”

Me: “Fine, let’s just get this done.”

(Another hour later, as they finish drilling the rest of the roots…)

Specialist Dentist: “We are finished. Schedule your next appointment for the filling and the crown.”

Me: “Um, no, you need to fill this and put the crown on. My insurance ends today; I do not have $1,600 to pay out-of-pocket for this.”

Specialist Dentist: “We can’t finish this today; you’re not scheduled for that.”

(After that, they made me leave. It has been four months, and two of the fillings they did have fallen off, the tooth with the unfinished root canal has cracked, and the broken fillings have exposed nerves. I managed to scrape together enough money to fix one of the fillings, but the other broken filling is out of the budget, and so is the unfinished root canal. It’s pretty bad when a filling falls off while eating pancakes.)