Because
I’ve recently unlisted this website with Google, so I do feel a bit more confident in expressing some stronger opinions. I’ll use this new opportunity to make a point about a recent situation at the School of Dentistry. You see, we are currently expected to simultaneously care for patients and continue learning in what’s called a pre-clinical lab. So, we have lab work for fake and real patients. If you take an impression of a patient’s mouth on 8th floor, you have to disinfect it, walk down to 4th floor to get your pre-clinical materials (you don’t want to take a patient’s wet impressions in the elevator alongside other patients), and then climb back up to 9th floor to pour the darn thing up in the clinical lab space (using your pre-clinical materials). See, the school hasn’t given us the tools we need to do clinic work for real patients. We’re in a weird in-between phase. Soon, we’ll transition out of pre-clinic lab. Here’s an excerpt from the email we received:
The reason you have not been checked into the clinic lab upstairs is because you are not yet checked out of preclinic lab.
Did you catch the problem there? You needn’t attend the School of Dentistry to see it. One word: “because”. It’s very powerful — it is supposed to be a clue that the writer is about to articulate the reason for something. But it is often abused!
It doesn’t say in any document anywhere, ever, that we can’t be checked in to both places simultaneously! The email explanation is circular and illogical! “We use wood for houses because it is a good building material.” There it is again! Worthless. So, watch out for “because”.