Vol 16 Dental Update

OK, I have to let my dental friends know how the dentistry is here.

Firas continues to do a very thorough initial exam. We take an FMX and then he takes as long as needed with the patients.

We use rubber dams for composites (yay!) He's actually quite careful, and thorough.Turns out he’s very good at root canals and crown preps and he’s very, very good at extractions. Better than Dr Ismaily, the oral surgeon that works out of our office. Dr I is the “big cheese” in the dental community so it is quite a coup that he is working out of our office. He teaches at the University and is the government’s dental representative. But I assisted him one day on four 3d molar, (wisdom tooth), extractions on a 20 year old guy. He extracted the upper two so fast he took quite a bit a sinus and bone with them. I showed them to Firas later and I think he was surprised. Here's a photo I took of the teeth.

We are still trying to find a good lab for our crowns. We’ve tried 3 now. The dentists here are so bad the labs haven’t had to learn how to make good margins. We’re going to start sending to a lab in Ohio if we can’t get one here to work for us. We keep having to send the cases back to the lab over and over which is a pain but I'm glad we do that instead of cementing the crappy crowns.

We’ve done some cool surgeries, crown lengthening, etc (remember, he interned in oral surgery), and Wow! Is surgery ever cool! I love it.

We’ve seen the worst decay imaginable. We had to extract a little boys anterior maxillary 6 teeth they were so badly decayed. They were little brown stubs. All of the interproximal filling we do are deep. Challenging to get the matrix sealed. He’s getting very creative with them. I don’t understand why people leave their dental problems until they get that bad here. We had a guy come in the other day (gross alert- skip ahead if squeamish). His upper left 3 molars were so far gone. Unbelievable. GIANT lingual abscess. The size of a small egg. Firas had to do a careful root tip count from the x-rays and then hunt them all down though the squish. Sutured him up and when we saw him later to remove the sutures I could not believe how quickly all that flesh had sealed itself back up again.

I am thoroughly enjoying myself at work. We have so much fun. He’s really funny. He lived in the US for the past 15 years or so, so he’s very Westernized but he has the Arabian accent. Too funny when he starts imitating Americans.

And he’s generous. I’ve already gotten a raise. Nice one too. He promises bonuses when we make our monthly production goal. We almost made it in February so we may make it this month. The practice is growing quickly. We’ve been open almost 3 months and we have 350 patients. The schedule is filling up. We do have problems with patients no-showing or arriving very late and still expecting treatment. We also get walk-ins expecting treatment and because we are trying to build the business we are accommodating when we are able which means I’m working 10 hour days every day. I’m on salary so I get to take my overtime in pay or time off. I think I’m going to take the time off option so I can have long weekends to visit places near by like Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Firas is going to Ohio for 2 weeks in April so I get 2 paid weeks off. I think I’m going to go to India. Airfare is cheap from here to neighboring countries.

The front reception area.

The hallway to the operatories. I love the curved lines.

We have a big problem getting supplies. It takes forever for them to arrive after we order them and we just can’t get so many things here, which is why he had me bring so many supplies when I came. And the suppliers will say yes, I can get you that and then just never bring it. They don’t like to say no to the customer. The other dentists don’t use rubber dams so we have to get those from Dubai. We only have one rubber dam forceps so I am constantly running it through the sterilizer and we figured out that you can use a curved hemostat in a pinch. We just ordered 2 new chairs. One is to replace the chair that is in the surgery. We just don’t like it. The other is for another treatment room. Right now we have one treatment room, the hygiene room and the surgery to work out of. We really need another regular treatment room. We have capacity for 2 additional treatment rooms after that too. The chairs are all Adec, out of Oregon, so we won’t get them until some time in April.

We have a hygienist from Michigan who is originally from Washington State interested in the hygiene position. We’re keeping our fingers crossed. Meanwhile we have two American hygienists helping us out. One is our office manager, so she’s getting behind in her manager duties and the other is a woman here with her husband that doesn’t need to work but is willing to work 2 days a week.