A dentist is cleaning your teeth??? Yes it's me!!!

Today I had a busy schedule - I was doing fillings, and crowns, and seating crowns, and finishing cases, while our hygienist also had a full schedule filled with exams and probings and xrays. It was a GREAT day. BUT I also had two appointments where I needed to do the works myself: the cleaning, the updated films, and the cleanings.
I'm not complaining about my day at all - but as I was performing the cleanings, each patient asked me "Aren't you the dentist? How come you are doing my cleanings?" My answer to this question was that "Yes I am a dentist, but I enjoy doing cleanings because I get a more comprehensive picture of you and I am able to spend more time with you." And these are very TRUE statements! But as of late I have been reflecting more and more on doing cleanings for patients and feel that, as with everything, there are pros and cons to a dentist doing cleanings.I have decided that there is a catch 22 with doing cleanings as a dentist.
Let me start with the positive because the advantages of a dentist performing your cleaning are many. When I'm doing a cleaning I am able to look around, get a sense of the patient's home care, feel cavities, discuss their hygiene, see excessive bleeding and inflammation, see where their body language shows that they are having pain in a certain area when I work there. Little innuendos that I cannot see when I pop in with my white coat, white coat syndrome makes the eyes go blank, and are often sadly lost! I am able to obtain a "whole picture" of the patient from start to finish of the appointment instead of popping in for an exam, seeing teeth already cleaned by the hygienist and they are anxious and ready to leave. Also, if a hygienist did the cleaning, the majority of the interpersonal contact has already been done with the hygienist - all the energy and rapport has been spent with someone else. I become the mean dentist that comes in to check and give them the news - thumbs up, or worse, the bad news about any cavities. So when I am able to do the cleanings myself the TIME with the patient, the interpersonal contact and the face-to-face time I spend with them is invaluable. If they need me for an emergency in the future, they can put a face to my voice or if they have enjoyed our previous interactions, they know and trust I am helping them - certainly trust me more than if they didn't know me at all!.
Now to the cons (the less positive) - while I enjoy cleaning teeth the fact remains that I AM a dentist and my time is more productive and better spent doing dentistry. Additionally I personally would like to be honing my dental craft and doing what I studied - crowns and fillings and bridges, and more complex cases. As an associate dentist I do a lot more cleanings than I would like - not again that I don't like doing them, but I would PREFER to be doing something else - challenging myself as a dentist and learning something new in the process. In the end I could do a darn good cleaning for you - but what about the rest because if I never get to do dentistry, I won't be able to learn and won't be able to tackle the more complex cases and won't have the experience to help a patient in need - because I've been busy doing cleanings.
For now, I am content in that I am able to have a happy medium where currently as an associate I get the best of both worlds - in that I am able to do cleanings and spend time with the patients, and I am still able to do the dental side of things and learn (like today). In the end I am able to embrace and enjoy and have a nice mixture of treatment in the day (hopefully I will do more treatment than cleanings in the future, but patience is my virtue!!!)
image courtesy of: funnyordie.com