Some people are terrified of the dentist. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it’s just something that dental professionals have to deal with. For a regular cleaning, this can be annoying, but for a procedure that’s even more complex it can be incredibly frustrating. You don’t need your patient actively sabotaging your work, so you do your best to distract them, right? Well, there are right ways and wrong ways to distract patients. These are some of the latter.
Practicing Your Standup Routine
Well, you definitely have a captive audience, so it’s understandable that you want to practice a little before you hit the Laugh Factory this weekend. The thing is, the fixed-jaw chuckles you’re getting aren’t very genuine. They’re coming from a terrified place, as your patient tries to decide what the odds are that you’re one of those crazy dentists from the movies. Also, your “oops” joke will never be funny.
Puppet Show
Children love puppets, you may be thinking. I can just wrangle one of hygienists into performing a puppet show for them, probably by promising her Friday off. This is seriously off base. Children 20 years ago loved puppets. Unless your puppet is holding a smartphone, any kid over the age of four isn’t going to be interested. You might as well put a pet rock in their goody bag.
Posters
Every dentist has a few posters on their walls or their ceiling. This should never be thought of as a viable solution for distracting patients. How long does a poster distract the average person? I don’t know but it can’t be over 10 seconds. Even when you’re spotting the differences or finding the hidden toothbrushes in the picture. Posters say, “This is literally the least I could do for you.”
Your VHS collection
Listen, we appreciate the effort here. You propped a TV on a little desk in the corner because at the time wall-mounted TVs were a dream. It probably has the VHS player attached to the bottom. That’s cool, but even children know when they’re being played. They have better picture quality on their Gameboy, and they also don’t understand why you have a limited selection of movies when they have access to pretty much every movie ever made at home. You’re getting warmer, but you’re still not there yet.
These are all pretty ineffectual ways to distract patients while you’re working on their teeth. But the best way is with a Molar Media Mount. The guy with a TV is on to something, but there’s probably no way his patients can comfortably watch it. Plus, unless he has the greatest movie library of all time in his dental office, patients are going to be pretty disappointed in the selection. But the Molar Media Mount solves these problems. It clips onto the dental light and pivots so that patients always have a clear view. And because it uses a tablet, you can stream whatever movie or show your patient likes.
So pop over to our store right now and grab a Molar Media Mount for your dental office - your patients will thank you!