Getting Into The Groove

Its funny, I’ve been working in dentistry for 20 years now.

It’s like tying my shoes. I really don’t think much while I’m doing it. It’s like instinct now.

After doing the same movements for thousands of hours, it becomes very natural.

Think about when you first learned to drive a car. You were very aware of every movement you made.

You would think, “Ok now I need to take my foot off the accelerator and place my foot on the brake, so I could stop this car in time.”

But now, after thousands of hours of driving, you don’t think about it. Now you could have a conversation, look at the guy on the corner, notice all the cars that are around you, and still drive perfectly safe.

Whenever you do something new, every movement you make, is well thought out, and you may have this tunnel vision. As you get more experienced and more talented, you start noticing all kinds of things, like the guy on the corner, in my car example. That’s happened to me in dentistry. When I first started, all I saw was the tooth I was working on, but as my experience level increased, my field of vision broadened.

I’m seeing the tooth that I’m working on, the tooth next to it, and the tooth just below it. Then, I may notice a chip on the tooth, all the way on the other side of the mouth. Then, I look at the tooth just below it, and it has a similar chip and I deduce that these teeth may have collided with each other and caused this chipping.

All of this happens within a matter of few seconds.

It’s all the processing we do, once we get good at something, and the amount of information we are able to take in in a small window of time.

And even with all of this experience and knowledge I have in dentistry, I had some nervousness when I went back to work.

I had been off work for 2 and half months, aside from emergencies. When we were given the go ahead by the state and the Illinois Dental Society, I had a nervous feeling in my stomach.

I couldn’t even identify what I was afraid of. Maybe it was, not being at work for so long and then going back. I can’t even pretend to know but I just know that I had some nervousness.

But the second I got back and began doing my thing, the nerves went away.

It was a similar feeling of when I wrestled in high school. Before the match, I was really nervous, but once I began the match my nerves went away.

We are now officially opened for business and are looking forward to seeing everyone.

We will be all covered and geared up, but just know that under all that protective equipment I have a HUGE SMILE on my face.

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If you are having any dental issues or would just like to get in for a cleaning, please call 773-292-1911.

Floss like a madman!