One of Our Readers, a Dentist in Texas, Recently Sent This Cartoon to Me

March 1, 2008

It gave everyone at Chairside® a good laugh. While I am unsure who originally conceptualized this cartoon, I am confident they spent their fair share of time in restorative dentistry. The cartoon is a good-natured parody of the way different specialties approach the same problem, and even jokes about the lab getting blamed for not following the doctor’s Rx. As a dentist, it is hard for me not to be somewhat proud of the general practitioner, who showed some ingenuity and made it work. The punch line and central message of the cartoon is this: sometimes, we have a tendency to over-engineer what our patients really want. Maybe the pedodontist would have gotten this one right.

Figure 1

As designed by the periodontist

Figure 2

As related to the prosthodontist

Figure 3

As per the Dr’s Rx

Figure 4

As fabricated by the lab

Figure 5

As cemented by the dentist

Figure 6

As diagnosed by the oral surgeon

Figure 7

What the patient wanted