My friend is a dentist working in a state hospital and he let me in on some interesting medical stories from his job. These three stories are touching and some are funny. Enjoy!
A 78-year-old female patient with Alzheimer’s disease draws and colors me a picture with color crayons for every dental appointment. She carefully explains what everything in the picture is. ”Now this is a tree. Now this is a house. This is a window.” She appreciates my approval about each object in the picture. I say things like: ”Oh, wow, that is a beautiful window.” I find that if I get down on my patients level, make eye contact, and speak very softly, I get a lot more cooperation, and they don’t feel threatened. Working at a state hospital is a tough, but very rewarding job.
A woman with slight mental retardation and some emotional problems, in the middle of treatment, will start singing a hymn. She has a beautiful voice, and my assistant and I just back our chairs away from the patient’s treatment chair. We listen until she finishes her song. I tell her how beautifully she sings, and that her hymn reminds me of church songs I grew up with. She thanks me for the compliment, and we go back to work and finish the dental procedure. Although I need to get to other patients, I don’t mind sitting back to listen to her sing. It’s beautiful to see how she can find simple joys in her old age like that.
Some of the patients are so unstable, they experience delusions of grandeur. These patients make me laugh because the things they say are just so out there, and yet they say them like its 100% true. One patient says he owns ALL the Walmart stores in the northern part of the state. Another patient says she owns every ToysRUs in Oklahoma, and another one announces she OWNS the state-owned building we work in. I told that patient, “Nice building you’ve got here. I like working in your building.”
