A Prescription Named 'It's Okay'

As I face patients in the examination room day and night, there is a standard phrase I hear as often as a greeting.

"Doctor, is this okay?"

Whether after taking an X-ray or when their gums feel a little prickly, patients ask this question with a truly anxious look on their faces.

Actually, every time I hear these words, a question arises in my mind:
—in the first place, what is the 'standard for being okay'??

From a medical perspective, for example, an 'early-stage cavity that doesn't need immediate drilling and can be controlled by brushing' is, without a doubt, in the category of 'okay' for observation.
However, for an extremely anxious patient, the very existence of even the slightest cavity in their mouth is a horror, and it is not 'okay' at all.

Conversely, even if there is a deep cavity that I see and think, 'Oh boy, if this is left alone, they won't be able to sleep at night due to severe pain in the near future,' the patient might leave with a calm face, saying 'it's okay' simply because it doesn't hurt right now.

In other words, a uniform standard for 'okay' that applies to everyone
does not exist anywhere from the start.

The meaning of 'Is this okay?'

Then why do patients go out of their way to ask me that?
They don't purely want to know the severity percentage of their condition or the medical evidence.

In the end, they just want an expert to tell them it's 'okay'.

In this day and age, if you search for 'tooth pain cause' on your smartphone, AI will give you as much information as you want.
However, AI, online summary sites, and social media posts will not shoulder even a millimeter of the anxiety of the patient in front of me.
The more you look, the more you see only the worst-case scenarios, and the more uncertain your footing becomes.

That is precisely why I want to give them the official stamp of approval directly from the mouth of a professional dentist,

'It's okay, don't worry.'

By receiving this, they can clear away the murky anxiety swirling deep in their chests.

That question is not a medical inquiry,
but rather a desperate psychological SOS saying, 'Please make me feel at ease!'

Therefore, we dentists must not coldly brush them off by just looking at an X-ray and saying, 'Oh, it's okay, it's okay.'

With anxiety and relief,

What is that person afraid of, and what do they consider 'relief'?
Properly grasping that standard and supporting them with a solid basis.

That, too, must be just as much a part of
important 'treatment' as giving anesthesia or drilling teeth.

Medical work is not just about finding and treating diseases.

Gently accepting the unspoken anxiety that the patient has been carrying.

Surely, this is the essence of medicine.