Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Been A While

It has been quite a while since I've had to perform the duties of a Dental Assistant. I'd say good ten years. That's enough time to erase any knowledge of Dental Assisting skills left in my brain. But today, it all came back, well, sort of.

I got to work this morning at quarter past eight as I always do on the days that I work, and prepared for my eight thirty start. At eight forty five, there was still no sign of my patient. My next two patients had also decided not to keep their appointments today, so I was to twirl my thumbs for three hours. But that was not to be. One of the two assistants had called in sick earlier that morning leaving one single assistant girl to take care of two dentists, one hygienist, reception and all the rest of the million things a Dental Assistant does. That created a problem. And here came I to the rescue!

My boss asked me to assist him. Sure, it's not like I was up to my neck with work or anything. So I put on my gloves, mask and goggles, grabbed the suction and waited. Turns out there are a couple of things that need doing before it's time for the suction! Oh, but that was what I was looking forward to the most: suctioning with the huge hose, my saliva ejector's big brother! Heavy duty, baby. Well, I did some of that, but not enough for my satisfaction. The rest of the assisting was a joke. I hardly remembered what the sequence is for what procedure and mind you things have changed a whole lot in ten years, plus it's in another country where things are different as it is without the passage of time. Needless to say, my boss had to tell me and show me what to do next the whole time, so in a way, he did it all by himself, with me sitting there looking pretty.....and suctioning my heart out, tongues and cheeks included!

It was an experience though, and it made me appreciate the role of the assistant girls so much more, not that I didn't before mind you, I'm not the type of person who forgets where they came from. But it also made me appreciate my own job all the more. Those years of hell, uhrr, I mean Dental Hygiene School, really paid off. Now I work less and earn more. Nope, not fair!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I think there might be Assistant Boys too...

Svetlana said...

there very well may be, there are Hygienist Boys so why not Assistant Boys. but the Swiss have not progressed that far yet. they still can't believe it when i tell them i had a boy in my hygiene class, and no, he's not gay. funny pple the Swiss.