This stockholm syndrome is annoyingly hard to avoid. I've known about it, but I can recall many similar occasions after reading this article.
Examples?
The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists
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Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists
#12Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists
#13This article got me thinking about a trip to the dentist I had a few years ago. From when I was 5-18 years old I had the same dentist and between ages 13-18 I had a really impeccable record when it came to not having cavities. Then, when I came back from my first semester of college I had to switch from my old dentist (who specialized in children/teenagers) to a new one. On my first visit, he identified something lik…
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Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists
#14Areas like this (essentially, a complex combination of psychology combined with differing motivations along with a little information disparity for good measure) could be an interesting opening for a startup. If you could get over the admittedly uncomfortable social dynamic of implying a lack of competence in your dentist, you could ask them to send your Xrays over to "2ndopinion.com" where trained and certified dent…
Or just crowdsource the reading! It would be really interesting to check out the aggregated quality of this kind of technique.
Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists
#15I think this happens with surgeons as well. About two years ago my doctor found nodules on my thyroid... blood tests revealed Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. After a series of ultrasounds, radioactive iodine uptake tests, and needle biopsies, I was referred to an ENT who specialized in thyroid surgeries.
The pathology report revealed that there was about a 20% chance I had papillary thyroid cancer, which has the highest cure rate of any type of cancer (>95% are completely cured after a thyroidectomy). So he recommended we take it out.
And that's what I did... a partial thyroidectomy where one half was removed. Turned out there was no cancer.
It was weird, though. After all of the painful tests, the long weeks waiting for appointments, the waiting in doctor's offices, the uncertainty, I didn't really think to say "Well, this is pretty low-risk... why don't we just wait on it?"
Surgeons will operate if you let them. It's what they do.
Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists
#16Dentists can be complete crooks though.
All my life I went to two dentists. Both were pretty good, and I had cavities pretty rarely.
Later, my parents had to switch insurance, so we went to another dentist with a much nicer office. He takes a quick look at my teeth and says, "Oh yeah, looks like about eight cavities. We should drill them etc etc"
My parents are shocked and take me back to our most used old dentist for a second opinion. He examines me closely with a pick and tells us the other guy is full of shit, and that behavior is really common in dentistry.
Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Examples?
Buying a car is a really unpleasant, multi-hour experience, but it's funny how often people go back to the same dealer.
I never bought a car. How do you make it take multiple hours and really unpleasant?
I image, if I was to buy a car, I would look up interesting models on the internet (including price information), perhaps ask my friends for advice. When I am ready knowing what car I want, I'd go to the dealership, see if their price is right, and buy it (or leave it).
I might phone around before hand, to find out their prices and compare with other dealerships.
How does it work in reality? How do you make it last long?
Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Buying a car is a really unpleasant, multi-hour experience, but it's funny how often people go back to the same dealer.
I never bought a car. How do you make it take multiple hours and really unpleasant? I image, if I was to buy a car, I would look up interesting models on the internet (including price information), perhaps ask my friends for advice. When I am ready knowing what car I want, I'd go to the dealership, see if their price is right, and buy it (or leave it). I might phone around before hand, to find out their prices and co…
most car dealers force you to haggle. they won't let you know that you are being forced to haggle until seconds before it's time to sign the contract. then, suddenly, there are all these options that you absolutely must have, new financing terms, etc etc etc.
if you do the right thing, e.g., get up and walk out, they will let you do it. then when you get to the parking lot, they'll run you down and try to convince you to start the process again.
it's really, really nuts.
Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists
#19A dentist is the closest thing most of us get to a cosmetic surgeon. They can have a large effect on our appearance and have procedures that will probably cause us the most pain out of anything the normal person has done to them. Plus, they hold up an x-ray and say "This is..." not "This might be...". You really owe it to yourself to get a good look at who is doing the work.
As an example, as a child I was under government health care (Indian Health Service in the US) and "had to have" a root canal done. The dentist did the work (come to find out it is generally someone else who does this). I think nothing of it other than the extreme pain. This is when I was in 6th grade.
1st year of college and I get this incredible pain in my mouth. I go to a dentist (not IHS) and get my mouth checked. Come to find out the original dentist left some infected material in there and I am in a world of hurt. Antibiotics and Percodan for two weeks and then oral surgery. The oral surgeon had some not-so-kind remarks about the person who originally did the root canal.
Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists
#20There seems to be a massive disparity in techniques and tools, too, though I am reporting only anecdotally. I recently got dental insurance again after a long time, and for better or worse started going to a dentist again. I picked him via "since I have no other metric to use I might as well pick the closest that takes my insurance". Somehow I stumbled onto an older guy with a lot of experience but who has also kept up with the latest technology.
He doesn't use X-Rays to find cavities, he's got this laser thing that directly measures the tooth density and makes little werping noises when it is low. He found a couple of things (which I had no reason to suspect weren't problems as they were highlighted as problem areas by another guy ten years ago, and one of the other problem areas he said still isn't enough of a problem to be worth doing). It seems a much more objective system than poking at things or looking at X-Rays. I got a couple of filling done via laser drill, which I didn't need anesthetic of any kind for. (Those with low pain tolerances might, it wasn't pain free, but it was OK and I preferred it to a droopy drooly mouth for most of the rest of the day.)
I figured I'd just been out of the game for a decade and a lot has changed but I've mentioned this to my coworkers and few of them recognized any of that stuff. Your anecdotes solicited.