Okay we are making it official...my wife is pregnant again.
What can I say she can't keep her hands off me.
She is 17 weeks tomorrow.
We have had one ultrasound very early just to tell us that it was indeed a baby.
So in two weeks we go for a real one. As you can imagine there is much tribulation about this one.
We waited a long time to tell everyone because of our past disappointments.
If you are new to the blog my wife and I have been trying to have #4 for a bit now. We have two babies not make it through the pregnancy in the last year and a half. As you know my wife and I are not spring chickens anymore.
So if you are praying people please pray the Lord will deliver us a healthy, hairy baby.

Okay topic,
I have been talking this week about my associate years.
I have so many stories.
I will give you a bunch of quick ones today.
I was doing a lot of facials and ML and DL in the maxillary anteriors on this woman in my first assosciateship.
The guy I was working for used Marcaine for everything. So when in Rome...
I shot her up with a bunch of Marcaine.
About 20 minutes later she started to feel what I was doing.
So I pump her full of the stuff again. And sure enough after about 20 minutes she is feeling it again.
So I don't know what happened but it didn't go good. She complained to the bossman saying that I was the ONLY dentist in her life that has hurt her. So of course my boss had to have a "sit down" to tell me that patient care in important.
This is a huge confidence builder for a young dentist.

After about 6 months into my associateship I had an assistant that was great.
She was an extrovert like me. We hit it off great. We laughed and hooted and hollered all day.
I worked this job only two days a week and on the days I didn't work there she was the secondary assistant for the bossman.
I was brought into the office one afternoon and the bossman asked me how I like this particular assistant.
I told him I really liked working with her. I thought she was a great assistant. I thought we jived together and she was able to know that things I was looking for before I needed them.
He fired her the next day.

This particular guy liked gadgets but always bought the cheap knockoff of the product that really worked. He had an apex locater but it was very temperamental.
One day I was working with it and it just wasn't working. I was new at all these instruments and I still wasn't that good at root canals (All of my old patients that are reading this....I am sorry). Maybe I said this wrong, I wasn't very confident in my ability.
The apex locater wasn't working well (or wasn't working at all). I got up and went over to his side of the office and asked the bossman, "I know you used the apex locater this morning...did you have any problems with it?"
He looked at me confused, "No, it was working fine."
I went back to work trying to get through this root canal with out the apex locater.
About 5 minutes later his assistant came over to my side and said, "I was working with him this morning and he couldn't get the apex locator to work either."
I couldn't believe the SOB lied to me. Right to my face.
Why would he do that?
I remember this like it was yesterday and it happened 14 years ago.
That is how much this effected me.

One more before I have to go. I am going to a team building Bowling Party with some of my staff.
I was at the office (at one of my associateships) when they were having a staff meeting.
The bossman was the one in charge. It started off cordial but after about 20 minutes it became very clear that there was a front desk was one team and the back of the office was another.
The discussion got heated and people started to raise their voices. Then it went to standing up and pointing. Then it escalated to screaming, people crying and all that.
I was sitting there in awe. I was thinking this was an awful reality show before reality shows even started.
And the boss just sat there and watched it. I was an incredible scene.
Associateship are so good for young dentists. Mostly to show you how you don't want to practice.

Have a great weekend,
john