5.Patient Cancels Appointments And you say “it’s ok, can we do it tomorrow 4 PM?

As doctors, we are taught to hold ourselves in high regards.

We are told that if the patient respects us, he will listen to us and eventually, it will build the necessary trust we need to treat him.

In colleges, we are told that we’re supposed to be punctual and strict about our appointments.

We are also given the impression that patients also hold us in high regards and with respect.

But in this modern day capitalism, things have changed fast.

“What we are not taught is the fact that the patients these days do not care about all that.”

If they are going out with a friend for a party, they would simply call your office and postpone the appointment citing some reason or the other. You will be waiting in your clinic for them (canceling some other patient appointment). But 30 minutes before the visit the patient will call you and INFORM that he will not come today for the visit.

Then they might ask you for an urgent appointment tomorrow (Sunday) because Monday they will get busy. In all these commotions many patients conveniently forget that the dentist also has his/her own plans for Sundays and Monday he/she might be having other patient appointments. 

How does a dentist react to this situation?

Well, how you react entirely depends on which stage of the dentist career cycle you are in.

If you are in the initial stages of your dental career, then you are not in a position to counter the patient.

And because you will be broke, you would accept the postponement and swallow your pride saying, ‘Oh that’s OK. So, is 4 pm tomorrow fine?’

And then it will happen again and again and again.

Sometimes, the root canal treatment would fail simply because the patient came too late. But then, if your spirits aren’t broken fully, you would call him out on his negligence.

If your spirits, however, have been sacrificed at the altar of the modern day competitive capitalism, you would tell him that it’s no one’s fault but the tooth is gone now and the treatment would now be extraction and implant placement.

To all the dentists who have faced these problems, my message is ‘Hey, it will be OK. I don’t know when and how, but it will all be OK.’

Such scenarios will keep occurring until you reach that stage in your professional dentist career where you are no more dependent financially or psychologically on every patient that comes to your dental practice.

That will be the day when you can answer the patients who do not value your time like this:

To be continued…

This is an ongoing series of articles and it will continue in next editions.

In this post, the author spoke on some of the issues that affect the dentists. These issues are related either the system of dentistry or to the everyday incidences that a dentist faces in his/her dental practice.

The author has previously posted some of his cartoons that depicted some of the real life awkward moments for a dentist in a practice. The cartoons were a big hit and went viral on the social media. You can have a look at the cartoons here:

The 4 Most Awkward Moments for a dentist in daily practice

4 MOST AWKWARD MOMENTS IN THE LIFE OF A DENTIST IN CARTOONS |

Being a Dentist has many rewards & plus points. But being a dentist also means dealing with dental pain and other associated things. There are 4 awkward moments that a Dentist faces on a daily basis at work. But a dentist has no choice in the matter.

The author is a dentist currently working in New Delhi. He likes to write in Hindi and English
and draws cartoons too. He is soon coming out with his humorous novel about the love life of dentist titled ‘Lying Through My Teeth’. He can be contacted at abhyu.bats@gmail.com. You may follow his blog abhyused dentist-life blog to read more from him.