This story is only for people with
broad minds.
At university we, having proved out
competence, were finally allowed to treat patients under the supervision of a
clinical tutor.
A friend of mine, who I shall call
Fred to spare his blushes in case he reads this, had been seeing the same
patient for a few weeks and on this particular day he had come in for fillings.
Trying to put the patient at ease before an injection, Fred said, " Just
lie back and open wide, this little prick won't hurt" to which the patient
replied, "You did last week".
Behind him the tutor laughed and
said, " Your patients know you well don’t
they", then walked off.
The tutors at university as a rule
had no sense of humour, one however proved to be the exception. We shall call
him Mr. T.
Firstly I must explain that
everything we did as students had to be checked stage by stage by tutors. My
friend N had started to do a filling on his patient, he had the injection in,
he had cut and cleaned the cavity ready for filling which had been checked and
approved. Next he had to line the cavity with cement prior to filling. He chose
liner that comes as two pastes, which you mix together, and paint onto the
floor of the cavity. The material is a little fiddly to use particularly in a students hands. Having
applied the material to the cavity he went to Mr. T. to get the work checked.
Mr.T. looked at the lining, took off his glasses and cleaned them,
looked at the lining again then stared at the ceiling of the clinic examining
every square inch of it. By this time N was worried and asked, "What are
you looking for?" to which Mr. T. replied " The
pigeon that crapped in this cavity".