Turns out that Dr. Ryan is a "diva"

I had my second trip to the dentist today. As you'll remember I was a bit weirded out by the first trip, and I walked into the office with more uncertainty about the outcome of the procedures than I've felt before, at least in a dental setting. To begin with, I wasn't really sure what the procedure was going to be... of my two appointments this week one was for a cleaning, and the other was to replace my silver fillings with something newer.

Turns out that today was filling replacement day, so I'm still a bit sore as I write this. I don't think that soreness has anything to do with the skill (or lack thereof) of Dr. Ryan, but I still can't say that he's an inspiring dentist.

To be sure, my bar for dentistry is quite high. I was only able to go to the best dentist in the world two or three times, but she left an impression. Dr. Mona Nashid (I think) was my mom's dentist when I had outgrown my pediatric dentist. I remember my last trip to Dr. Nashid was a week before I left for the Atlanta Olympics. She's the only dentist I know that stopped the procedure to administer more novocaine after I flinched; I hadn't even requested it, but she was so empathetic towards pain that she made doubly sure her patients felt as little as possible. She looked like she would cry if I walked out in pain. There's no debate: empathy for pain is the #1 skill I want in a dentist.

And Dr. Ryan is still working on it. He's a guy, which puts him somewhat behind the 8-ball, but he showed some signs today. With that, here's the bulleted report:

• His sense of humor continues to be bad. He made a joke about me complimenting the background music that insinuated that if I hadn't liked the music that I would "pay for it."
  
• The first filling was replaced without incident, but as he started to drill the second one I definitely felt some pain. I gave him the "pain" signal and he gave me another shot of novocaine. Now, this was the same thing that Dr. Nashid did, but she never seemed perturbed about interrupting the procedure. Dr. Ryan seemed put out to have to pause for 5 minutes. Not encouraging.
• During the 5 minute pause the hygienist called him a diva. Since my mouth looked a lot like a bass that's been jerked out of pond I couldn't really dig deeper, but this isn't an encouraging sign.
• What I felt like all day:
• I did find out that I am younger than Dr. Ryan. I talked about remembering the music video for Europe's The Final Countdown. He said this aged me, and asked how old I was. I answered "30" and he said he was older than that. My hygienist piped up that she was 24, and it was her iPod that was playing.
• There were no fewer than three instances when the hygienist had to ask Dr. Ryan how to do something, which makes me think she's had her job for about three weeks. Again, there's nothing inherently wrong about that, but it makes me long for my previous hygienist who alternately told me that I looked too young to be taken seriously in business, and said I was getting old when she spotted a few gray hairs.
• Last time I reported the good Dr. was hurrying me along so that he and the staff could get to happy hour. This time he was hurrying me along so that he could go to Belize and drink a lot. Actual quote. Also told me he drank a lot the previous weekend. Not encouraging.
• Lastly, and easily the creepiest thing going on was the mystery 3rd person in the room. There was some dude who hung around for my entire procedure looking over the doctor's shoulder. No one ever told me who he was, or what he was doing. I heard that he was 23 years old, and when he asked a question about how to do something Dr. Ryan kind of told him to shut up. A student? A recently hired hygienist? A homeless dude?
  

So we're not quite at prognosis negative, but we're close. I go in for my cleaning on Thursday, and hopefully I'll get the first hygienist I met, who seemed to be the adult in the office. I'll get the scoop from her. Or, I won't and I'll find a new dentist in the Spring.