Please Spare A Thought For Your Dentist!

Dentists are here to help you have healthy teeth and gums. Here are some ways that you can help us 🙂

At Mike Allen’s Dental Practice, we pride ourselves on doing all that we can to help our Burton patients have healthy teeth and gums. Advances in dental care have led to a wider range of treatments being available for problems such as missing teeth as well as many others. Although there is some ongoing discussion on professionals forums, about whether robots will eventually perform some of theses tasks, for now, you will have to put up with us mere mortals!

You may think “why should I spare a thought, you’re not the one who has to undergo a treatment”. This is true and we don’t mean ‘poor old dentist’ when we say this. The reality though is that we need to be on top of our game to be able to offer the best treatment possible.

Helping our practice

We rarely get chance to choose the straightforward check ups first thing in the morning and may well find that our first patient needs emergency treatment. Obviously, much responsibility for being ready from the first to the last patient falls upon the dentist, and so we need to be alert and ready. So to help us perform as well as we can, here are some important things we kindly ask for your help with:

Keep your appointments

Any dental practice will tell you that one of the most frustrating things is when patients don’t turn up for their appointment, especially when no notice is given. We do understand that there are circumstances where appointments have to be cancelled, but do try to give us at least 48 hours notice where you possibly can. In the event of a genuine emergency, where an appointment has to be cancelled at very short notice, please still let us know. Even a late cancellation may enable us to use your appointment slot to treat someone who is in severe pain. It could be you one day.

We also recommend that if you do cancel, you rearrange your appointment at the same time. It can be easy to put off doing this otherwise, and you may end up not seeing a dentist for a long time, with the subsequent tooth and/or gum problems that are likely to arise.

Please be factual

During your appointment, your dentist will ask you a number of questions, including your medical history and medication that you are on. Please be honest with us about this. It is important that we have the correct information as this may affect our decision regarding your treatment options. For example, if you are on blood thinning medication and don’t tell us, this could lead to significant bleeding, with all the dangers that could entail.

Our Burton dental team and assistants respect your privacy and you can be sure that all personal information will remain private and confidential.

Please be polite

Few people are rude to the dentist but unfortunately some people have been known to be rude to front line staff such as receptionists. Fortunately this is rare, but it is not unheard of.

Shouting at a receptionist because they are unable to give you an appointment when you want it will do no good at all. We always try, where possible, to accommodate your needs in this respect, but sometimes, this just is not possible. Being rude to staff will not change a thing and will only result in a less pleasant environment for our team, something, quite naturally, we want to avoid. If you have a problem or complaint, please do contact us as we want to know about it so that we can take any necessary action. Please do be polite about it though. We are only trying to do our job.

We know that some people really dislike seeing a dentist and for many, it is probably a long way down their list of things they want to do. We will try to make your visit as pleasant and stress free as we possibly can. This is much easier if you allow us to do so by being polite, helpful and allowing us to carry out any necessary work that is needed.

At Mike Allen’s Dental Practice, we enjoy our work and we like to know that we have helped a patient have healthy teeth, or even by helping them to look nicer with a cosmetic dental treatment. Remember though, that dentists are human too and have feelings! A good two way relationship between dentist and patient means that you will receive the best possible care and help the dentist to remain focussed for your treatment and those following you.

To arrange a dental appointment at our Burton on Trent practice, please call us on 01283 845345.