The DMD Check-Up: 'What I Wish I'd Known Before I Became a Dentist'

A dentist lays out the thing he wishes he’d known before stepping into the profession. That story tops this week’s DMD Check-Up. Also making the list: Should dentists restrain children during procedures?

• 12 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Became a Dentist (Cosmopolitan)

A California dentist offers up personal insights on his chosen profession. From: “get ready for everyone to constantly tell you how much they hate dentists” to “[E]ven if people hate coming in, it's worth it when they leave smiling.”

• Musculoskeletal issues Most Common Problem for Dentists (Dentistry.co.uk)

“Dentists claim musculoskeletal and psychiatric disorders are the biggest health problems for the profession,” according to a Dentists’ Provident report. “One day you’re happily caring for patients, the next day the pain hits and you’re barely able to move.”

• Which Is More Important: Streaming TV or Brushing Your Teeth? (Fortune)

Think it’s a problem? According to a recent Roku survey, 21% of Americans said they would rather give up brushing their teeth for an entire week than not be able to stream television.” And “40% said they’ve cancelled plans just to stream a program.”

• Controversial Dental Restraint Sparks Debate (CBS News)

“Some parents claim their kids were tortured and traumatized during a trip to the dentist, and they blame a controversial restraint device,” according to this report from Boston. “There are psychological ramifications after having used that. It's kind of a dental PTSD," says one dentist.

• Mixing Dental and Medical Care Would Reduce Cost and Pain (The Berkshire Eagle)

A report about a Massachusetts “initiative of Health Care For All's Oral Health Advocacy Task Force. The project is based around the idea that incorporating oral health in accountable care organizations and more closely aligning medical and dental care can both save money and improve a patient's overall well-being.”

• Dentist Accused of Fraud Puts US Global Cop Role at Risk (Private Wealth)

A report about Robert Bandfield—“a US citizen who practiced dentistry in Canada decades ago, is accused of masterminding a $250 million financial fraud in Belize that allegedly sold sham companies to investors from the US and elsewhere to facilitate illegal trading, tax evasion, and money laundering.”

• Rural South Carolina’s Oral Health Crisis (The Post and Courier)

“Five times more common than asthma, tooth decay is the most common chronic disease for children and is almost completely preventable,” according to this story authored by some top state dentists. When it comes to “untreated decay and treatment urgency needs, disparities between rural and urban communities remained pronounced.”

• Tylenol: Kills Pain & Kindness (The Washington Post)

“Acetaminophen, the most common drug ingredient in the United States, can reduce a person's capacity to empathize with another person's pain, whether that pain is physical or emotional,” according to new research in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.