The Campbell Academy Blog (87)

My own little corner of nowhere

After the disconcerting and unsettling conversation I had last week with the individual who was very high up in dentistry telling me that the robots are going to take over the world and there's no place for humans anymore, I ended that conversation by saying that I will just look after my own little corner of nowhere.

It usually feels like that is what I do, and that is what we are doing, and I am under no aspiration that we are changing the world.

Dentistry rarely ever changes the world.

People design IOS scanners, CBCT scanners, new composite restorations, or materials for crowns, and they convince themselves that they're changing the world by giving people a smile and allowing them to eat again.

It's worth remembering that smiles are not mandatory and that people don't need teeth to eat or to live; the research has all been done on that, we know that.

Restoring people's smiles and their dignity and confidence or allowing people to eat the things that they want are definitely valuable services, but they don't change the world.

If everyone had all of their teeth taken out, we'd all be the same and still alive.

Dentists don't change the world by fixing people's teeth; they change the world through kindness, empathy, care and understanding of people's concerns and worries and by looking after them.

When someone decides that they want their teeth to be made to look better or to be replaced if they are missing, then the dentist gets to be kind, considerate and empathic; they get to care for the individual who has put their trust in them, or at least they used to.

Some time ago, one of my colleagues and friends at work gave me a Christmas present, which was a quote from Mother Teresa, which explained that she alone could not change the world, but she could cast a pebble and make ripples to try to encourage other people to do so.

We can return to the situation where Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world," but sometimes it feels like you're pushing water up a hill.

Regardless of that, almost none of us get the opportunity to change the world on a greater scale, so what is left for us to do is aggressively and tirelessly try to improve our own little corner of nowhere.