You wake up and get ready for work. Feeling nothing. You drive to the office. Wondering why? You put on your scrubs. Wishing you weren’t there. You care for your patients, go home, and when your spouse says, “How was work?” You respond, “Fine.”
But you’re not fine.
You’re not happy. You are no longer excited to tell a kid, “You have no cavities!”? You are no longer smiling underneath your mask.
That’s what happened to me.
I thought I was fine. I was going to work and helping patients. I wasn’t depressed and laying in bed all day. I made my patients numb, but I was the one feeling numb. It happened so gradually that I didn’t even realize it was happening. Until I was so unhappy, I didn’t want to go to work. But I kept going. And I kept making myself numb, so I wouldn’t feel the pain that I hated dentistry.
My dream career became just a career. I knew something was wrong when my dad died and I didn’t cry. And when my son was born 2 months later, I didn’t feel joy. That’s when I realized I need a new dream. A new career.
That new dream. That new career was … dentistry.
I looked at other jobs, but after staying at home with my newborn son, I missed the feeling of the drill in my hand. I wanted to go back to dentistry, but this time, I was going to do dentistry differently. It was the same drill, but I was a different person.
I thought back to my favourite part of dental school. It was working on kids in the public health clinic. I thought back to what I wanted to do before I became a dentist: to be a teacher. So, I started doing dentistry in public health clinics and I also became an educator. I was excited to go to work. I was no longer numb, I was happy.
And then, I noticed that familiar feeling that I had before. I was going through the motions of work, without feeling any emotion. This can’t be happening again. I was living my dream.
I thought about my day. My first patient was late. Someone called in sick. A kid cried. The room was hot. A patient was mad. The sensor didn’t work. A patient was scared. I screwed up. My neck hurt. My last patient didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be there.
All those little negative things made me a negative person. The voice in my head made the day even worse. “What’s going to go wrong today?”, “Oh no, not that patient.” “I am not good at this.” “I hate this.”
I was unhappy again. And again, I knew the answer wasn’t changing my job, it was changing me. All those negative things in dentistry happen every day. That is not going to change. But I can change. I can control the voice in my head, the thoughts in my mind and the energy I give. I can walk into the operatory saying, “I am going to give this patient the best dental appointment ever.”
I was doing an extraction on a 12-year-old boy. It was hard to get him numb, tears were running down his face, and I was running behind. At first, I said to myself, “I can’t do this.” Then I took a breath and wiped his tears. I focused on him, not what was going wrong. I started singing the Numb song by Khalid and Marshmello, “I wanna get numb, numb, numb, numb.” My patient flashed a smile and my assistant and I started laughing.
How about you? What can you do so you are smiling underneath your mask?
About the Author
Sanj is a general dentist who graduated from the University of Toronto in 1999. She practices in Brampton, Ontario. She can be reached by email: sanjuktamohanta@hotmail.com
