There is a blog post by David Murray at Writing Boots on March 12, 2026 titled A letter to the dentist: On communication and other issues. He wrote about dealing with his hygienist:
“While she was actively grinding away at my teeth, she began saying—I could barely hear her muffled masked voice over the grinding and the sucking—that my gums were somewhat inflamed and that she’d have to do a special cleaning that was going to exceed my deductible, by an amount she didn’t specify.
I stopped her and told her in no uncertain terms that you do not negotiate money things with someone while your hands and sharp objects are in their mouth. She said, ‘Okay,’ and agreed to drop the issue of the special cleaning, as long as I came back in four months, rather than six.
Eager as hell to get out of there at any cost, I agreed to that. Then, a few minutes later, she scheduled me for the regular six months, without mentioning the four-month interval.”
I had an opposite easy communication experience here in Boise with Summit Dental. That was almost two decades ago, when they were on Latah Street. We started going there just because they were walking distance from our house on the Bench.
Previously I also had lots of tartar buildup and difficult cleanings done at the usual six-month interval. But the second time I went there, the hygienist asked me if I would like to switch to a four-month interval. I replied that no one ever had bothered to ask before, and of course thereafter things became much more pleasant. More recently they moved to a new building on Americana Boulevard. And usually they are ranked as one of the top three dentists in the Best of Boise annual rankings by Boise Weekly magazine.
The dental chair image came from Wikimedia Commons
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