Dr Karl Le Roux

Dentistry and Patients

I received an interesting perspective from a friend, reflecting on my work as dentist.

For years, dentistry has been labeled as the most stressful profession due to ‘manufactured’ conditions.

For me, there is mostly joy with patients. Each patient brings combinations of pain, fear, life stories and desperation with them and I have to use this privileged look into this patient’s life and soul, to not only treat the physical problem, but also the person. The patient’s soul. The fears they have and I love to share, give advice and take advice.

A patient allows me into his/her life with stories, and my warped sense of humor gives us a far more colorful and fulfilling experience in dentistry, than just fixing a dental problem.

It is so interesting to, by now, know what a patient’s personality traits are by the time we find a few words about life. The dental thing is usually easy. The soul thing is more complex and it is this part of a patient that colors my, and hopefully the patient’s life.

The relationship between myself and a patient, is unique and special. With every patient I am positive that I know their borders and this makes my work amazing and relatively stress free.

So, I have the benefit of looking into a patient’s life and realize that there is trust that I have to fulfill.

Sometimes I sits.

Sometimes I finks

Sometimes I sits and I finks (spelling mistakes intended)

These words we, as students, said in respect of the statue of a man, that appears to sit and think. ( The Thinker” or “Le Penseur). Sometimes I have these thoughts of life. The meaning of this all, and NO, I do not have a religious empty space that needs to be filled. I just think.

Are all the important facts about how to manage your health, that we are being fed by research and media, really that important. Do we really need to take all the supplements, keep track of out steps each day, work ourselves to death, watch our electronic wrist attached watches all day, just to be healthy, as heath is defined by media and internet research.

I am not insinuating that you must continue smoking and be a couch slouch and not take care of your mind and body. I am asking (thinking), can we not just live life with normal food and hard old school exercise, and still be healthy. Is it important to have that one little slightly skew tooth corrected with braces, and you must have toxins and strange fillers injected for little wrinkles and have to consume absurd amounts of tinned supplements, just to be healthy. (By the way, little wrinkles show wisdom, status and is sexy.). Will your life terminate into total chaos?

What if we just accept a bit of what life give us. Take care of what we were dealt, but do it well. Laugh a bit more and let that steroid pumped guy in his 4x4 cut in. Let him go, because he will NEVER reach a point where he will realize that that single one second he stole from you, has no benefit for him. What if, preserving your spiritual wellbeing, our fun in life, eat just enough (hara Hachi bu), turn away from anger a bit more, exercise with fun is more a benefit to our longevity than all the crap we are blasted with.

Imagine (ala John Lenon), imagine if we all are just nice.

Karl