Not having anything go really truly catastrophically poorly at the clinic yet, I have been wondering how I will explain to a patient when, inevitably, things go wrong. For example: “Whoah, this does not fit.” Or, “That tooth really did not last long at all.”
Assuming a dental explanation won’t do much to advance the patient’s understanding of the situation, there is a possible analogy. Consider basketball players: their job is to get an orange ball through a hoop. This is what they are paid to do. There are other things they are paid to do, but if they’re not facilitating getting an orange ball through a hoop, they’re not doing their job. This, it seems, is quite a specialty. However, even these specialists don’t make every shot they shoot. There are too many different circumstances. We don’t call them a poor basketball players because of this; instead, we consider the challenges they face.
Similarly, dentists can’t fix every tooth perfectly, and have it last for the rest of your life. They get paid to fix teeth, and they’ll do their best, but it’s impossible to fix 100% of the teeth that they encounter.
I don’t know if this analogy will work, because I haven’t yet tried it. I hope it’s a while before I have to try it out.
Learnt a new word today, “fixer”. I first heard it when Anthony Bourdain briefly referred to his show’s fixer during their trip to Beirut, Lebanon during the Lebanon War. A fixer, then is a native that you contact when you are planning to travel to an area. They can connect you with experiences you would never otherwise have, and are experts about every aspect of their area. What amazing travel guides. More in this article: The travel world’s top fixers - Times Online:
We’re talking about those expert Mr Fix-Its who know
their patch like the hairy side of their hand, and can
whisk you off to camp in a “lost” jungle temple, party in
an off-limits favela, or simply cook with Granny in her
native village, somewhere deep in the bush.
This morning, I was thinking about raising children. Admittedly, I know v̶e̶r̶y l̶i̶t̶t̶l̶e̶ nothing about it because I haven’t done it. I do think that when raising children, inspiring speeches carry almost no effect, while leading by consistent example is one of the most potent positive effects you can have on a child’s life.
Obviously, repeatedly telling your child not to lie while telling lies yourself is a problem. I wonder, though, if I will find myself telling my children things like this: “Doing the things you don’t want to so you can enjoy the things you do is a valuable skill no matter where you end up or what you end up doing.” Or will I understand that I am communicating this by example?
Apparently, I post a fair number of dashboard widgets these days. Here’s the latest:
The day this happened, I biked back home in the heat. The wind was up, and it felt artificial it was so hot. Odd thing: I biked past the five story Oak Street Ramp on the U’s campus, and there was this cool air wafting out of it. It had gotten so hot so quickly that the concrete of the parking structure had remained cool, and was cooling the block around it. It was really odd to suddenly be about 10 degrees cooler.
Similarly, under the trees of Prospect Park, the asphalt hadn’t heated up, and it was cooler. Noticing the changes in heat and my noticeably stickier tires rolled over the pavement was like having another sense.
