Dentist's Chair : K Achuthan

There is no wonder why people talk about the dentist's chair as a
'dentist's chair'. I had been on one this morning, for the first time in
my life. In the 52 years of my life, I thought I had experienced life so
much that I have seen the world. How wrong I was. You dont see the world
(well, that view of the world that a dentist's chair offers) until you are
on a dentist's chair.

The view of the world from a dentist's chair must be very similar to that
what an infant has about the world. On its back, without being strapped
back, and yet so helpless! All that it stares into is the face of the arms
that holds it, sometimes close, sometimes not so close but never away.....
breathing down instructions that are firm but yet filled with options, the
tollerance limits of which are so narrow that no matter how it opts to
exercise them, it ends up getting what it did not want.

The dentist's chair is designed with a lot of fanfare. It reminded me of
the 180 degree reclining 'flat bed' chairs in the first class cabins of
Emirates airlines! With the touch of buttons, you could bring the world to
your command. The difference is that the buttons are not operated by you
and the world that comes to you is commanded by the dentist. You negotiate
the turbulance without a seatbelt on!

A dentist by profession is a well qualified person who is programmed to
demonstrate his skills around the multiple options of the chair that he
rules. He rules it with a well rehearsed set of hard and soft skills. The
hard skills are spread around his arms reach in well defined compartments
of the chair. The soft skills are the words that he uses to placate you
once he takes control of the chair. In my case, there was this particular
instruction that told me that he was in command. " If you are in pain,
raise your left hand index finger, but dont talk". Even a POW has better
rights of expression.

An affair with a dentist's chair is pricy and therefore thankfully brief.
The chair is so designed that its occupant must occupy it only so much so
that the investment on it is amortised with a decent ROI. The capitatation
fees paid for the dentists BDA, the interest cost to set up the clinic,
the standard of living of a Doctor who is a dentist, etc must all be
recovered through the chair that seats the patients.

A dentist's chair is a very successful business model. The chair offers
you, as the pundits say, "deffered gratification". "Pain now, pleasure
later". If removing the lower wisdom tooth was about 'pain now,pleasure
later', imagine the number of molars that a dentist's chair can relieve
you off so that you walk into the sunset of your life as a ' perfect by
product' of a dentist's chair. Imagine, the potential a chair offers to a
dentist. The chair commands such brand loyality that you dare not switch