LADY DENTIST

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 53, 28 June 1940, Page 42

LADY DENTIST

particular idea of a torture chamber you’d probably answer a dentist’s surgery. Not so much physical torture as mental. We all know that " gone-in-the-knees " feeling when we approach the terrifying door. We are greeted by the Ogre himself — with a cold-blooded air of friendliness and goodwill — as though he was really pleased to see us, and presumed we were just as pleased to see him. He adds insult to injury by inviting you to step into the torture chair and. make yourself comfortable. Comfortable? With those gimlet eyes darting round your mouth and deciding how many contraptions will be necessary to do the "job." You might be the most beautiful of creatures — or the most hideous. He is simply not aware. To him you are just a mouth; an assortment of shabby old molars, stubby wisdoms, bicuspids, and incisors. Finally, he chooses his instruments of torture, like a craftsman selecting his pet tool-and after that, you are in his hands, 1: someone asked you what was your A Comforting Apparition But what about a lady dentist? Have you considered her possibilities? Don’t you fondly imagine that her delicate touch would be kinder on that arch-fiend of torturers-the drill? When she gives that useless old molar the final tweak don’t you think that the tweak may be a little less fearsome? I met a lady dentist the other day; an instructress at the new Government Dental Clinic. She was young and friendly and nice. She had a calm air of assurance about her. Her hair was brown and crinkly, her eyes hazel, and her hands were small and firm. I reflected, as I spoke to her, that she would be a comforting apparition to gaze on over a pair of forceps or an outsize drill. She showed me more drills and other similar contraptions than I thought I would ever see outside a nightmare. Fifty of them, clean and shining and sterile, ranged along the great room where she instructs the girl trainees in the gentle art of dentistry. Not Much of a Nightmare It takes two years to become a. qualified Government dentist. The first six months the girls sit back and "swat," the next six months they work on dummy jaws, and the last twelve months they attend to the thousands of children, from two to twelve years, who attend the Clinic. After that they are ready to go out on District work. ' I looked down the long room with its fresh green and white colour scheme, the great plate glass windows letting in a brilliant rush of sunlight. and I thought,

well, this is making a nightmare into a pleasant dream. Some of the trainees were attending to their small patients, Others sat or talked together in groups. A nice, cheerful lot of girls, attractive in their white uniforms, keen on their job. Her First Patient " Of course they must be keen on their work," said my lady dentist, " otherwise they would never go through with it. I took my degree at Otago Universityfour and a-half years — and I loved every minute of it." "What did you feel like when you tackled your first patient?" "T was so keen to get on real work after months on dummy jaws that I welcomed the opportunity." " What kind of work do you like best?" I asked curiously. " Are extractions, for example, considered more difficult than fillings?" "Well, none of it is really difficult when you know how to go about it. But I would say fillings take more time and care, an extraction is over in a minute or two-but a well-filled tooth is made to last for years. The work I really like best is straightening out crooked teeth." Parents Do Harm She told me that parents do their children a lot of harm by allowing babies to suck their fingers or thumbs and to use a dummy. Crooked and protruding teeth are the result of this habit. She always impresses this fact om parents, as the avoidance of it, together with the routine of cleaning the teeth and proper diet, saves the child many hours in the dental chair in later life. "Do you prefer children’s work to general practice?" I asked. "TI love the children,’ she _ said, "although you get more variety, of course, in private practice."

"Whom do you consider the best patients, men, women, or children?" "Children," she said promptly, "every time. It is only when they grow up that they get scared. Very few of the children who attend here are nervous, the spoiled ones are the most troublesome-the ones who always want Mother in sight. A Cheerful Place She showed me little furnished rooms, hung with gay chintz curtains and with one or two bright pictures on the walls. There was a couch and a little washbasin. They are for children who may be taken sick-or to placate any timid ones. The magnificence of this modern Clinic overawed me. The great cream-coloured halls with their dark wood doors and panelling. The lecture rooms with their central heating, the private studies, the trainees’ lounge-like a modern drawingroom, the green and cream cafeteria, the kitchens, the offices, the workrooms, and the laboratories. The waiting room is a charming spot with comfortable lounges for the small ones and the adults, a radio, books, toys, and flowers. Every room has its own colour scheme; artistically designed curtains outlining ths tall windows. The man who conceived and built this place had sympathy and imagination. Its very brightness and aiz cf cheer banishes fear.