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The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists

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Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists

#31

Post by timcederman »

8ren wrote: post #29

I've tried 6 dentists recently, 2 were local; 2 were referred by people I knew; 2 were referred by health-care professionals who were trustworthy and gave me truly excellent results in their own field. I'm in Melbourne, Australia, and I have no reason to believe that our dentists are particularly bad. All 6 were either dishonest or incompetent. Including: preventing my front teeth from meeting; modifying opposing tee…

Where in Australia are you? If in Brisbane I can recommend several excellent dentists.

For people in the US, Yelp is a good starting point, but it helps to try a dentist once or twice as a trial (rather than going for major work without knowing what they're like).

Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists

#32

Post by 8ren »

timcederman wrote: post #31
8ren wrote: post #29

I've tried 6 dentists recently, 2 were local; 2 were referred by people I knew; 2 were referred by health-care professionals who were trustworthy and gave me truly excellent results in their own field. I'm in Melbourne, Australia, and I have no reason to believe that our dentists are particularly bad. All 6 were either dishonest or incompetent. Including: preventing my front teeth from meeting; modifying opposing tee…

Where in Australia are you? If in Brisbane I can recommend several excellent dentists. For people in the US, Yelp is a good starting point, but it helps to try a dentist once or twice as a trial (rather than going for major work without knowing what they're like).

Thanks, but unfortunately I'm in Melbourne (edited to add it).

Yeah, I've been doing the trial thing also. Maybe I should keep trying, but some were charging $100-200 for just inspecting.

Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists

#33

Post by eru »

jcl wrote: post #24
eru wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Here's a brilliant article from several years ago that crops up on HN from time to time -- an undercover report on car dealerships. It's long, but it's recommended reading if you are planning to buy a car, or if you have any interest in sales psychology: http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/42962/article.... According to this article, there are two kinds of dealerships -- high-pressure and low-pressure -- an…

Thanks. Yes, now I remember having read that article some time ago. My idea of phoning around and doing online research probably even came from there.

Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists

#34

Post by Eliezer »

jerf wrote: post #20

There 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…

Can you name the dentist if they're in the Bay Area?

Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists

#35

Post by dstorrs »

jerf wrote: post #20

There 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…

Your dentist wouldn't happen to be in the Bay Area, would he?

Edit: ninja'd

Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists

#36

Post by jerf »

Eliezer wrote: post #34
jerf wrote: post #20

There 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…

Can you name the dentist if they're in the Bay Area?

Sorry, he's about 2,300 miles away from the Bay Area. :)

Hmm, may I take this as further evidence that my absolutely terrible selection metric has indeed blundered onto a good choice? (I'm honestly surprised, I honestly thought I had just been out of the loop.)

Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists

#37

Post by ugh »

protomyth wrote: post #19

A 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 gove…

“Plus, they hold up an x-ray and say ‘This is …’ not ‘This might be …’.”

Ha! My dentist actually said ‘This might be …’ as we looked together at a X-ray. He said that we could be looking at very, very early caries or just a shadow and that X-ray images are always tricky. I will be X-rayed again at the next routine checkup to see if anything has changed.

Incidentally, how common are X-rays in the US? It sounds like they are quite common which surprised me. They don’t seem to be part of the yearly checkup in Germany if I’m remembering right. I think it’s rather a every-other-year or every-three-years thing.

Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists

#38

Post by dminor »

timcederman wrote: post #30
jojopotato wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any pointers on what to avoid?

The main areas I evaluate are: - technique (one of the most important, but generally difficult to interpret without some tuition. However some good indicators are time spent in mouth during procedures, how prepared is the dentist (hunting for tools is worrisome), level of pain, number of times work has had to be fixed) - hygiene (appropriate glove changing, mask, tool use and sterilization). The most obvious things I…

> - equipment (age of equipment, tech levels (not too high - don't forget, you the patient are paying for it). This is also important as digital x-rays use much less radiation and allow for immediate review with the patient.

My brother, who is a dentist, used both film and digital in school and found he preferred the resolution of film. No doubt digital will improve though.

Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists

#39

Post by olefoo »

stellar678 wrote: post #14
ekanes wrote: post #3

Areas 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.

If by crowdsource you mean have multiple dentists look at every image set, then maybe. But if you're suggesting that a random selection of people look at dental x-rays and guess where the cavities are... that would be an interesting experiment, but I wouldn't expect too much.

In either case, I doubt you'd find much traction since looking at dental x-rays isn't something most people are going to want to do on a regular basis without being compensated.

Re: The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists

#40

Post by endtime »

jerf wrote: post #36
Eliezer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name the dentist if they're in the Bay Area?

Sorry, he's about 2,300 miles away from the Bay Area. :) Hmm, may I take this as further evidence that my absolutely terrible selection metric has indeed blundered onto a good choice? (I'm honestly surprised, I honestly thought I had just been out of the loop.)

Could you name the dentist anyway?
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