Not sure what you mean by “reputation”. But generally I think it’s hard for anyone to like their Dentist visit. Even a “checkup” typically involves a cleaning which is invasive and uncomfortable. This is compounded by the fact that people don’t take care of their teeth so feedback from dentists is almost always poor. I don’t think Dentists have a bad rep, but I can safely say I don’t look forward to my visits 😅
this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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The first dentist I ever went to was great. He was good with kids and adults and did his job. He was realistic about kids being kids and gave us the tools and information to make sure our teeth were healthy. I had him all the way through my braces and into high school. He then retired.
My next dentist was a horrendous, preachy, asshole who loved to tell all of his patients what was wrong with them, make people feel bad for their decisions to drink soda, and surmised that we were all eating too much junk food (which he wouldn't really elaborate on when asked). My diet wasn't perfect, but I had mostly home cooked meals with steamed vegetables, along with the occasional fast food lunch with friends.
He was also Mormon and I know a lot of Mormons love to get on their high horse and take pleasure in being petty, insufferable, assholes. I haven't read their batshit book (albeit, most in that genre are similarly zany and harebrained), but there must be some discussion on how to be a bad neighbor to everyone you meet in there based on their predilictions for unfair/unwarranted judgement and exclusion. He only hired other Mormon dentists to his practice and all the dental assistants were similarly preachy and religious.
I dreaded going to the dentist for mostly social reasons and didn't want to be shamed by being told that I had better take care of my teeth (which were fine) because my parents had spent a lot of money on my braces (and it wasn't that much money because the first dentist wasn't a sneering profiteer).
I ditched that asshole once I went to college and have had a couple dentists since then who were fine, did their job and didn't give me a bunch of flak for not flossing after every meal like a fucking psychopath.
Fundamentally, I think the issue with dentists is that when you get a bad one, they make you feel bad, which is the absolute antithesis of healthcare.
Additionally, because of the arbitrary and asinine distinction in the US between oral care and basically the rest of the body, dentistry is seen as cosmetic and unnecessary, often allowing or obligating dentists to charge an arm and a leg for most of their services. We all know how prices ratchet up from initial obligations to cover higher costs into "fuck the consumer, they were fine paying the higher prices anyway so let's increase our profit margin".
Compound that with the ridiculous price setting and insurance rackets baked into anything close to the health sector, and you have a lot of frustration even before patients get into the chair.
If you're not a dentist who will practice compassionate care, at least be one who just shuts the fuck up and does their job. Of course let the patient know what's going on in their mouth and how they can better take care of themselves or treat something they're dealing with, but chill the fuck out with the fire and brimstone shit about missing a cleaning or not flossing all the time.
Healthcare is all about bedside manner. If you don't have it, you're not a good provider and your business can and should suffer (the fact that our healthcare structures are businesses and profit motivated is fundamentally opposed to effective care, anyway, but that's the subject of another essay).
Edit: Cleaned it up a bit and added that my first dentist retired.
Additionally, because of the arbitrary and asinine distinction in the US between oral care and basically the rest of the body
You'll be (un)happy to know that your neighbours to the north suffer from same affliction. We have universal healthcare, but teeth aren't part of the body apparently, so that's not covered.
Always a fun time to go to a medical professional and feel like you're talking to a used car salesman who is trying to upsell you on a useless/unneeded procedure.
Exactly what I want from my medical "professional" lol.
If I'm not haggling them or any other business/provider down to a price that barely doesn't make me cry, I haven't had a fun day.
/s
Stay strong, neighbor. You sound like a good one.
Edit: Just Anglosphere things lol
I can say why I'm not exactly fond of my dentist: I'm missing a molar I don't need, my dentist keeps on trying to get me to spend over a thousand euros on an implant he can put in. Every visit he tries to sell me this useless implant. Every visit I say, "no thank you." This has been going on for five years. It gets old. Other than that, he's great at his job so I don't know. I don't consider him to be of the "bad rep" variety. A failed salesperson? Perhaps.
He likely does not recall every time he has mentioned this to you.
My mother in law was an office manager at a dentist. Dentists have sales quotas and have bonuses to everyone in the office for upselling.
You go in to a medical professional for health care and advice and they try and sell to you.
That's weird. I've never ever had any dentist try to sell me anything except for coming up with solutions to problems I have with my teeth. Never up selling or anything
Yeah. It’s extremely common. Fluoride treatments, sealants, crown replacements aren’t necessary. And things like veneers, and whiting are pushed pretty hard.
I think one of the problems is even determining where that line is.
I think my dentist is “good” and they have NOT been pushing things like veneers or whitening.
However I’ve lucked out with good teeth so they are almost never fixing problems I currently have. However as I get older, they’ve started recommending more serious preventative measures. However I have no way of knowing whether I actually need them or if they are superfluous.
It’s coming down to having a dentist who I trusted very much. However he retired and sold his practice, so do I trust the new guy?
They've been mentioning for years that I need to replace my fillings with crowns. I didn't do anything until I cracked a tooth. I learned my lesson and am working on getting crowns for the teeth that have the most fillings.
So... It might not happen right away for you, but they're not warning just because they're trying to make money.
Ya, going to the dentist can feel like seeing a car mechanic. You come in for one thing and then they try to sell you tons of other stuff that you are not even sure you need. It can feel really scummy. There are good ones but just like car mechanics they usually own their own business. If you go to the jiffy lube of dentists they will try to sell you other shit and may make the issue you went in for worse.
You go in to a medical professional for health care and advice and they try and sell to you.
You obviously were not at my last ED visit.
I'd say it's the experience of going to a dentist which has the reputation, not the dentists themselves. My dentist is great. I hate seeing him. Even when it's just a checkup and clean, he puts a drill in my mouth. I'm a human being, not an ore vein.
Yep. My dentists office has the greatest people and the best service of any business I can think of. They’ve never done me wrong in any way. And I still hate going there. It’s the fucking teeth scraper. I can’t handle the fucking pick work.
In Canada it's two reasons:
- They don't go to Medical School.
- They aren't covered by Provincial Health Plans, and therefore cost money.
These are the same reasons I don't trust Veterinarians, or Chiropractors. Ill give Dentists and Vets credit that they're at least studying real science.
Wait, you dont trust quackosnappers???
What's the difference between a dentist and a sadist? Newer magazines...
via Seinfeld
What are you, an anti-dentite!?
I recommend reading this article "I Went to 50 Different Dentists and Almost All of Them Gave Me a Different Diagnosis":
Went to a new dentist once and transferred my X-rays from my previous dentist. He told me I had 6 cavities.
Wow, don’t you think my previous dentist would’ve told me I had 6 cavities if I really did when he took the X-ray?
Went to another dentist for second opinion and never heard anything about 6 cavities again.
I’ve now moved on to another dentist and still nothing about 6 cavities.
However, I notice all dentists are always looking to add on extra treatments for deep cleaning or extra fluoride or whatever. It’s all about money.
You can’t trust dentists because they’re all conflicted by the business component of their work. This makes many of them scammers willing to damage your teeth to make a buck. You gotta look out for yourself, get second and third opinions and don’t be afraid to drop someone.
This is my experience also. Dentists are basically out to sell you stuff.
I agree, but now let's look at why. Dental insurance sucks, so they can't get paid enough to make them not need to invent work. Sure some are just sleaze, but that is true in any profession.
The only times I've had cavities in my life were the first couple visits to a new dentist.
There is a degree of subjective judgement involved in when a cavity gets bad enough to need a filling, but yeah, that room for judgement is also room for unscrupulous dentists to exploit patients for maximum payout.
i bet doctors would have a bad rep if you had to have a prostate exam/pap smear every 6 months.
Do they? Maybe it's more unpleasant because they're expensive
Real doctors go to real medical school. They learn tons of biology, pharmacology, anatomy.
Dental school deals with one body part and only a small subset of health problems.
Because doctors hundreds of years ago decided dentistry was quack science and not worthy of being in their ranks. That continues today with dental school and insurance often being separate
Do they? Well most people dislike dentists because it's very uncomfortable to have someone messing about in your mouth, and many things dentists do (cleanings, some surgeries) hurt or leave you uncomfortable for a long time after, and most people think of it as mostly aesthetic. Compared to say, a surgeon that might be similar but is saving your life, or a family medicine doc that at most puts a piece of wood on your tongue.
Also, dentists go to dentist school, not med school (in most countries at least). Dent is easier to get into, and is usually a shorter time to get your degree. Some people think this devalues dentistry, and say dentists aren't as good as "regular" doctors because of that. It's not valid, dentists are very good at what they do, so don't stress it.
Which is so silly when you think about it: “this tire expert isn’t a REAL mechanic”. Okay…and?? We need both.
Maybe because they'd always be judging you for your teeth?
The SOUNDS!
I think by far that is one of the biggest issue that people have.
Being so up close and personal doesn't help either. They have to violate your personal space more than regular doctors typically have to. Like literally the entire time you are there, they have to be up inside you.
Oh yeah, and did I mention the SOUNDS?!
I know several people who are afraid of getting dental work because they are afraid that they'll get assaulted while being put under.
It's not so much now, but during the 80s and 90s there was an epidemic of that happening.
At least in Germany, applied dentistry was seen as of even lower rank than surgery, something that did not have to do with professional medicine at all (the vocation of the university-educated medicus). Dentistry was a crude affair practiced by barber-dentists or other non-surgeons, sometimes in public bathhouses (places often associacted with prostitution and their bathmasters ignoble company, legally barred from forming or entering guilds), sometimes in broad public on the marketplace. Dentists were traveling people and quacks, those who break teeth (Zahnbrecher), often failing at proper extraction in the first place. All those prejudices took a long time, real progress in the field (anesthesia, pedal-powered mechanical drills and other tools, hygenic measures) and lots of organized lobbying to dispel. I'm sure the reputation of dentistry in other European countries must have been similiar. Some of that prejudice might have carried over to the new world, too ?
I'm now imagining a grown man with a child's tricycle hooked up to a drill, pedalling his heart out and trying to keep his arm still enough to get it in a patient's mouth.
This reminds me of a joke: What do you call a person who fails medical school?
A dentist.