Your Dentist Is A Proxy For Home

Your dentist constitutes an intimate relationship. Like the little birds hopping in and out of the crocodile's teeth, there's a level of trust implicit in letting another human being near your mouth. Once you understand the anatomy of the carotid artery, the level of trust deepens substantially.

A dear friend once proclaimed that you can't truly call a place home until you have both a dentist and a barber in the area. He was right.

My first dentist was a friend of my parents from the congregation we attended. So was the orthodontist who applied my braces. References were based exclusively on personal relationships.

In college, I made dental appointments and haircuts coincide with my longer visits home.

I continued this practice during medical school. In fact, it was not until my internship year that I attempted my first experiment in adulting by choosing a dentist who lived where I resided. That new dental practice...consisted of the sister and brother-in-law of my dentist from back home.

Dental school sweethearts, they made me feel cared for, and took time to read my old chart and review my past issues, few though they might be. It was akin to visiting a cousin of your parents in another country - a warm welcome based on shared memories of a generation you never belonged to but still benefit from evoking.

I don't recall visiting a dentist during residency or fellowship, although I imagine I might have sneaked back in to see my ex-dentist in my old hometown as needed.

On taking a new job in LA, one that suggested long-term potential (this is my 16th year with my group; I've felt incredibly fortunate to work alongside the same terrific crew for what I hope will be my entire career), I decided it was time to find my own dentist.

I asked around, and folks in the hospital ultimately referred me to an older dentist in the area who was a seasoned, calming presence that put me at ease. It was a moving experience to see his daughter graduate dental school and join his practice as his junior partner - she was my age, and we'd find out later that our kids attended the same schools.

The folks in his practice became endearing characters who ebbed in and out of my life every six months. One hygienist loved to catch me up on the gossip about a prominent cardiologist who was close to her husband for their shared home state upbringing. Another, a single mom, shared her struggles and updates on her daughter, who was my son's age. The receptionist shared the latest struggles on caring for her frail and aging mother.

Despite my custom of dressing like an overgrown adolescent on my days off - several days' stubble, flannel overshirt and shorts, sandals - they were polite and deferential and addressed me as "Doctor" without fail, always asking how things were going in the ER.

Dental relationships are intermittent, and if you skip a few months and are out of the loop to begin with (as I am) you can miss a lot. I returned for a routine cleaning six months after my last appointment only to find that the reception area now contained a frame reading, "In loving memory" with my dentist's smiling image inside.

Pancreatic cancer, the receptionist said. He went quickly.

And so, his daughter inherited me as a patient. At first, my bond with the staff in the office was stronger than my bond with my new dentist. Where her father was soft and congenial, she was initially quick and efficient. In retrospect, having small kids at home while taking over a larger practice might have made me more sympathetic had I stopped to appreciate her situation.

Over time, we grew close, greeting one another warmly at family movie nights and school events, sharing in victories as her eldest got accepted to college.

Most recently, a couple of nieces were accepted at the same university her daughter attends, and she generously offered her daughter's contact information for the newbies. There's a slowly cultivated sweetness to our friendship, a camaraderie to our children's shared victories.

Having older kids and shared professional ambitions for them, she freely gave advice on teachers and classes in our school district. She's become as warm and talkative as her father once was, and I feel connected and grateful to her.

Somehow, in the process of joining a multi-generational dental practice, LA went from being the place I lived in this particular moment to my home.