“I don’t know what
I’m looking at," said the dentist, as we clustered round the screen to
examine my X-ray.
That, I thought,
was an unusual thing for a dentist to say. Because if there’s one
thing you can be sure about with dentists it's that they always know what they’re looking at. And exactly how to describe it to the
person whose job it is to write it down. Without questioning. Let’s
face it, when was the last time you heard a dental assistant say: “Hang on a
minute, slow down a bit. Are you absolutely sure you got that right?
Doesn’t sound very likely to me.” You don't. Because when it
comes to the inside of your mouth, there are no surprises. There’s nothing
there that doesn’t have a name. And the dentist knows what it is.