Open Wide, Please

By Robert R. Olson D.D.S.

Open Wide, Please

A dentist’s story of his love and commitment to dentistry
and, mostly, his enjoyment! Humorous, interesting and weird patient stories!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664198999

Robert R. Olson D.D.S.

Dr. Olson tells his story of practicing dentistry for 48 years and enjoying it and almost didn’t retire at age 74. He practiced dentistry as a profession and not as just a business. And, he said the personal rewards were phenomenal and he and his family lived very comfortably. He never had to purchase a dental practice or advertise. His patients heartily supported his practice. Maybe it was partly his payment plan—pay at your convenience. It worked. Quite a bit of his practice was before dental insurance. He had over 4,000 patients! He often needed one or two associate dentists to help him. Patients also respected his service in community projects such as treating all the children in a local children’s home for twenty-five years, established the nation’s first in-house full dental clinic in a senior center, set-up a county after hours emergency program, he and his friend formed one of the best dental study clubs in Michigan. He practiced parttime in a dangerous area of Detroit and saw things most dentists never see. So, Dr. Olson said that he didn’t have just a lot of patients, he had a lot of friends.

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Copyright © 2021 by Robert R. Olson, D.D.S.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 11/16/2021

Xlibris

844-714-8691

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Contents

Chapter 1 Why in the world would someone choose dentistry as a profession?

Chapter 2 Patients

Chapter 3 ROTC and Future Offices

Chapter 4 More Patients

Chapter 5 So, what about my new office?

Chapter 6 Volunteer and Charitable Projects

Chapter 7 Even More Patients

Chapter 8 Dental Assistants

Chapter 9 Would you believe, more patients

Chapter 10 Stories during dental school

Chapter 11 Here’s some more patient stories

Chapter 12 Protection Money

Chapter 13 What happened to the money?

Chapter 14 Blow my own horn?

Chapter 15 Mercury

Chapter 16 Study Club

Chapter 17 Root Canal?

Chapter 18 Liability Insurance

Chapter 19 Peer Review

Chapter 20 Sweden Lecture

Chapter 21 A Bad Day

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to persons who helped make this book possible.

Marcia Olson        For her inspiration and encouragement

Olivia Lalko and Kathy Lalko        For their excellent images

Ed Sauble        For making building ownership possible

Carla Minotas        For helping me remember things as they really happened

My parents who supported me in the trip to this great profession

And to all my teachers who gave me the insight and knowledge I needed.

Also to the wonderful patients who helped me on this wonderful trip.

Dedicated to:

All my wonderful patients

and some of the patients who

weren’t so wonderful

Written 2017 to 2021

1

Why in the world would someone

choose dentistry as a profession?

Why should I pick a profession where someone sits bent over in a chair, twists his head, invades a person’s private space and treats a person who really doesn’t want to be there? How could I overcome these disadvantages? One has to weigh the advantages. Dentistry is a great profession.

In the tenth grade of high school, I decided that the ideal profession would be dentistry. And, after practicing forty-eight years I am still convinced that I made the correct choice. I’ve been retired for almost fourteen years and a few days ago a patient phoned me just to talk. The patient actually said he missed coming into my office. He said he missed the friendly atmosphere, our conversations, not only about dentistry, but also about all kinds of things and even the light classical music that he could hear over our PA system. You know, I picked a life’s work where I looked forward to going to the office. My patients became friends. I had friends come to see me every day!

A friend of mine wrote a dental book entitled, And They Never Came Back. We dentists all have stories of the many patients who did come back and kept coming back to make successful practices for us. Not only do I fondly remember these patients, but also some, that shall we say, were very interesting.

Oh, let me get back to the first sentence. Dentistry is the interaction of the patient and the dentist—working together to accomplish something that is worthwhile for the patient and gives the dentist a feeling of pride and accomplishment. And this is done over and over every day. It’s being part artist, part therapist, part psychologist, part CEO and part friend. It’s being involved in a dynamic profession that changes daily. Nuf said, let’s get to a few dentistry related stories—some happy, some sad and some just strange. This is mostly about patients, so let’s start out with a few patient stories and then how I got there.

2

Patients

Bedridden Patient

After graduation from dental school, I worked part time in several offices. One office was in Detroit. I saw things in that office that most dentists never see in their practices and probably glad they haven’t. However, the experience was very worthwhile.

One day a patient was in my part of the office In Detroit and after his appointment, asked if I would check his wife because she was complaining of tooth problems. I said, Sure, thinking that we could make an appointment for her. Then, he said she was bedridden, hadn’t been out of bed for twelve years and couldn’t possibly come into the office. He said it had been a real burden caring for her in bed for the twelve years. He asked if I would check her complaint at their house. I agreed and we arranged a time the next day. Sure enough, the patient was in her bed. I asked several questions about her problem and then said I’d take a look. I had brought along a light and several dental instruments and checked her mouth the best I could under less than ideal conditions. The mouth was a mess! Most of her teeth were broken, probably from extensive decay, and I was amazed she could even eat. I determined that she should have the teeth removed and a denture made. This meant arranging for an ambulance to take her to an oral surgeon. I went to the house at the time the ambulance arrived to make sure things were moving along correctly. The paramedics took a gurney into the house and into the bedroom and said they would take her to the ambulance. The patient said she didn’t need the gurney, got up out of bed and walked to the ambulance! What was she doing all those years while her husband was at work?

An interesting short note about the husband. He was employed by J. L. Hudson’s, the largest department store in Michigan. The store had many display windows that were viewed from outside. People would walk around the entire building to look at all the very elaborate display windows. This one fellow had a full-time job of doing all the displays and as he would get all around the building, he would just start over with new interesting ones. Oh, we wondered what even happened to the couple. We were never able to contact them. We even checked police records.

Eloise Asylum Patients

I had two patients, a husband and wife, who were in a local mental institution, Eloise. They each had had a nervous breakdown and some dementia and received several months of treatment. While they were at Eloise, they became friends with another patient who had been in the place for many years