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Kudos To A Pain-Free Dental Practice

Ordinarily, I’m wary of all things dental.  I had too many cavities as a child.  As a young man, I had a root canal done on the wrong tooth, followed immediately by the correct one.  My dental memories are a bit tainted.  Not an indictment of the entire profession so much as a kind of PPSD…post procedure stress disorder.

But when I moved to South Carolina, my wife and I found a wonderful general dentist in Dr. Ronald Moore, in Seneca, SC.  Rarely would I ascribe the words ‘painless dentistry’ to one of the practitioners of that esteemed profession.  But I have to give credit where credit is due.  His hygenists, and Dr. Moore, have all been the pinnacle of gentility.  Even my children aren’t afraid to go for cleanings.  And when I need anesthesia, well Dr. Moore is an artist with a needle.  Heck, if he were a tattoo artist, I’d think about it…

Sadly, when I was recently in his office for a crown, he felt that I first needed a root canal.  The very words inspire vague nausea and general panic.  From my own experience, ‘root canal’ is right up there with ‘waterboarding,’ ‘fingernail removal’ and ’shark attack.’ Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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