Dentists and Car mechanics?


Today is the first day of my holiday vacation and I called my mechanic to see if he could inspect my car today.  Also I wanted to diagnose why my car kept displaying check engine messages. Last Saturday it even temporarily displayed a message and lost its engine power. Luckily it went back to normal after I restarted the car several times. I had visited my mechanic the week before and he had reset my check engine light, told me I needed a new inspection sticker and that I should return after driving 100 miles in my car.

Starting at 8 AM I started calling his garage and he finally picked up the phone around 8:30. He didn't seem happy to hear from me. When I reminded him that he had asked me to come in and have the car inspected he informed me he was out of inspection stickers and that I should try again in January. I reminded him that when I saw him a couple of weeks before that he had advised me to drive a hundred miles before coming to see him and even though that was two weeks before I still hadn't reached 100 miles of driving (My car sits in a parking lot most days).

He seemed perturbed and said I had taken too long and now he was out of inspection stickers and there was nothing to do now. He seemed to be blaming me for the problem even though he made no mention of any time urgency when I had seen him before with my engine light problem. He just reset my engine light and asked me to drive 100 miles before returning.

Our interaction reminded me of the way dentists sometimes speak with their patients. "You waited too long!" or "How long have you had this problem?" "Now you're calling me right before the holiday!"

In truth dental patients can contribute to their problems and sometimes they do procrastinate but decide to come in right before a holiday. That being said, blaming the patient for their predicament is not a good way of maintaining a good relationship. Instead when we see them we should advise them about present and future problems at the time of their appointment. When a patient calls for an appointment it seems foolish and counter productive to blame them over the phone.

In my opinion dentists would be wise to remember that loyal patients should be treated well, even if at times we are frustrated that they don't take care of their problems as soon as we would like them to.  People are human and we are there primarily to serve them and not the other way around. Blaming them can be a very bad strategy! There are a lot of dentists in the U.S. and most are happy to accept new patients!

Back to my story; I went down the street to another garage who gladly inspected my car. He found I needed new break pads and I followed his recommendation and had my brake pads replaced. The whole process took less than an hour and a half and I left with my new inspection sticker. While I still haven't solved my intermittent check engine light problem, I do believe I may have found my new car mechanic.

from Ask Dr. Spindel - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/2018/12/dentists-and-car-mechanics.html - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/

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