Yours Toothfully by Dr Chan Joon Yee

The biggest irony is this. At the beginning of 2007 when my landlord at Lucky Plaza announced that they were going to increase my rental, I contemplated closing down the 2-year practice and moving back to Hougang. I thought of upgrading the place, renovating the living quarters upstairs and continuing with my cosmetic dental practice at much lower rental costs.

But I thought much about it and realised something. Hougang can never be Orchard. At Orchard, I have patients (mostly heartlanders) who quite routinely walk in for emax crowns which cost $800. At Hougang, even a suggestion to do a very basic PFM crown at $500 would be greeted by a look of disbelief by some BMW-driving heartlander. Will the Orchard type of patients come over to Hougang if I shut down the Orchard practice and move to Hougang? Or will the bulk of my patients be BMW-driving people who find $500 crowns unaffordable no matter how “high class” I make the practice?

Just two months ago, I saw a surge in implant cases (at Orchard, of course, never found a single implant case at Hougang all these years!) and the toothache dentistry business at Hougang was clearly performing way below that at Orchard. I made the decision to close down the clinic which I’ve been operating for 17 years at Hougang and concentrate on the town practice.

Not long after putting up the notice at Hougang, I saw a sudden surge in attendance at Hougang. Suddenly, patients I’ve not seen for 5 years or more were turning up to get their ancient tartar removed. These few nights, I’ve been working overtime. Whenever there was a long case like a crown or root canal, the patients started piling up and I must say that I’ve not seen such busy times since the NEL came up and buses were taken away from Hougang Ave 8. It was as if the neighbourhood malls suddenly evaporated. The traffic surged back at this humble, forgotten row of old HDB shophouses.

Well, I guess you can explain this was the closing down sale effect. If I didn’t announce that I’d be closing, this will never happen. I guess I would have to work very hard this December. Of course, many people who have not seen me for 5 years but suddenly want to see me for the last time may be disappointed. But that’s human nature. And I’m certainly not going to change my mind about closing Hougang just to avoid disappointing those who haven’t seen me for 5-10 years. Let’s see what happens if I announce my retirement.

I made a set of dentures for an old lady a month ago. It was a challenging case. Yes, that dreaded bilateral free end saddle again. I took care to design a chrome denture that would not move too much whenever the patient bites. But as free end saddle dentures go, there would always be a dragging effect in the saddle area.

As a rule, I warned the patient not too have such high expectations. As usual, the patient agreed and as usual again, the complaints keep coming in. This time, the one relaying the complaints were none other than her American-accented daughter. The Hokkien-speaking patient was nowhere in sight.

“Just trim the denture here and here.” she said, pointing to the appliance.

“I need your mother to be here to ascertain where the trouble spots are.” I said.

“Let me tell you. They’re here and here.”

“We need to be more precise than that. It’s useless for me to trim the denture without any reference to sore spots in the patient’s mouth.” I tried to explain.

“How do you know it wouldn’t work? You haven’t even tried.”

Well, suffice to say that even people who speak with an American accent may not know how dentures work.