Recently an email was passed around the dental community linking to a site that had a cartoon of a dentist trying to explain to a cartoon patient what the patient needed.
Basically the dentist tried to explain the patient's urgent problems that needed to be treated, and at the end of each explanation the patient asked another question about tooth whitening.
It was a big hit among dentists because it pointed out how far our expectations are sometimes from patient expectations and how frustrating that can be.
Dentists frequently fall back on the same dental dogma that they criticized after leaving dental school, and it is one of the hardest lessons learned - make the patient aware of what they need, but do what they want.
Everyone else is trying to give the customer what they want, and dentists were taught to give them what they need first, then maybe they can have what they want.
The Wall Street Journal ran a short article about the latest fashion craze: a gap in your upper front teeth (similar to Lauren Hutton).
Apparently this is one of the desirable flaws in models today.
Fashion Designers now want "character" rather than perfection in their models.
So some people are asking their dentist to move their front teeth apart, in the name of individuality.
Makes one wonder how good the parents feel after all of the money and time they spent on braces, which has ironically become a fashion crazy among children today.
I have had young patients with perfectly good teeth ask about getting brace like their classmates with fluorescent and other outlandish colored elastics.
One child wanted his braces to be metal rather then the more commonly used ceramic or tooth colored braces.
According to the article: "Some say the popularity of physical flaws reflects the skepticism of today's youth...
" I guess that explains why one of my younger patients refused to have his broken front tooth fixed.
How far does this go? The article claims that "flawed teeth denote authenticity.
" This would maybe be more accurately described as remade authenticity.
It does get a little confusing--where are we headed? Luckily this seems to be confined to the fashion world with few others asking their dentist to create flaws or withhold treatment in the name of individually and fashion.
How many times have you seen someone with missing, stained, and crooked teeth and thought, "wow--model material"?