Faith and Dental Art

It started as a very small pain in my lower right molar, but over the past few days it has gradually intensified.  Still nothing too severe, but the trend line was not encouraging.  I had to do something I have managed to avoid in all the time I've lived abroad:  go to the dentist in a foreign land.

"Oh no," exclaimed one of my co-workers.  "Can't it wait until the next time you go to the States?"

My expatriate co-workers, to a person, do whatever it takes to avoid visiting Kyrgyz healthcare and dental providers.  In fact, one of my co-workers packed his wife and son to their home in Singapore two months ago in preparation for the birth of their second child, rather than risk giving birth in Bishkek.  He left for Singapore a few days ago to join them for the event. 

When I asked about dentists, no one I knew could provide me with any suggestions of where to go as it became abundantly clear that none of my co-workers had ever been so daring and reckless as to even step foot inside a dentist's office in Kyrgyzstan.

"At the very least, I'm overdue to have my teeth cleaned," I replied.  "And I don't think I can wait long enough to return to North America to see a dentist."

"Good luck to you," one of them whispered in the hushed, mournful tone one would use when wishing a soldier Godspeed on the way to a hopeless battle where the odds of survival were uncertain at best.

Going to a new dentist, I think, is an act of faith--especially in a foreign country where one doesn't know the implements or the methods used by the dentist.  Even more difficult, in my case, is the faith one must summon to visit a dentist with whom one will most likely not be able to communicate. For many it might be easier and more certain to have faith in God than in a Kyrgyz dentist, because at least the prospect of a merciful God, would seem infinitely more likely than the prospect of a skillful and painless dentist in Kyrgyzstan, if the stories I had heard were to be believed.  

With absolutely no knowledge at my disposal, I selected a dentist.  I used a brilliant method:  I chose the dentist's office I had seen closest to my apartment.  In defense of my method, in the three months I have lived in the neighborhood, I had also noticed a multitude of affluent-looking young women with bright, shiny teeth departing from that particular dentist's office, which seemed to me like the ultimate in unspoken recommendations.

My dental clinic: Dental Art

The name of the dentist's practice is "Dental Art."  I would have preferred "Dental Science" as a name, but so be it.  Luckily the dentist's assistant spoke excellent English and, amazingly enough, I was able to be scheduled for an immediate exam, unlike my most-recent dentist in the U.S. who had a five-month waiting list and was as easy to schedule as an audience with the Pope.  Also, reassuring was the fact that there were no copies of "Guns and Ammo" or "Field and Stream" in the waiting room, unlike in my dentist's office in Arkansas.

My dentist was a pleasant and soft-spoken person.  Unlike my dentist in Kentucky, he hadn't practiced for several years as a U.S. Army dentist and did not wear a camouflage-print dental jacket in the examination room to honor his past assignment.  Using his assistant as a translator, without taking any X-rays, he confirmed I did have a cavity in my sore tooth.  Either he had X-ray eyes like Superman or my tooth was in the kind of condition that required no X-rays to make a diagnosis. Because I had arrived just before closing time, he didn't have time to put a filling in my bad tooth, but he said he would be willing to give my teeth a full cleaning.  Unlike any dentist I've visited in the past couple decades, he actually did the full cleaning himself, instead of assigning the dirty work to his hygienist.  Unlike my previous hygienist in the U.S., he didn't chisel away at the tartar; instead he had a very modern, ultrasonic device to do the trick. He was, however, like every other dentist on the planet when he made certain to have his assistant deliver the customary sermon about the necessity of flossing.

When it was over, the cost was 1500 soms or slightly more than $20.  Of course, the real test of faith will be next week when I am scheduled to get my filling.  Somehow, though, I don't think it will require an abundance of faith or courage to get the first filling of my life while in Kyrgyzstan.  Faith is belief in something where evidence might not be present.  After today, I now know that I must use whatever reserves of faith I have left for issues of the metaphysical as the evidence I now possess suggests this particular Kyrgyz dentist seems to have dental art covered.