This’ll Make You Clench Your Teeth

I work as a secretary in the Medical Imaging department at a local hospital. We offer appointments for MRIs. When a patient checks in, we ask them to fill out a questionnaire. This is to check if they have materials inside their body that can be dangerous because of the electromagnetic waves of the MRI.

Sometimes people can’t fill in the questionnaire. Some forget their good glasses, some can’t read or write, some don’t speak the language. Whatever the reason, we offer to read the questions to them and fill it in.

A patient comes up to me and says he can’t fill the questionnaire in on his own. I go over the questions with him. One of the questions is about dentures and whether they are magnetic.

Me: “Do you have dentures, sir?”

Patient: “Yes.”

Me: “Are they magnetic?”

Patient: “No, they are fastened with hooks. Here, look!”

The patient proceeds to pull down his mask and pull out his dentures, and he tries to shove them in my face!

Me: “That’s all right, sir. I believe you.”

I have never been happier that we had plastic shields installed at our desks.