The appointment where nothing happens

You come in, you sit in the chair, or in the lounge if the chair is too much on day one, and we talk. You see the room, meet the person who will be treating you, and ask whatever you want.

No examination. No instruments on the tray. No x-rays, no mirror, no plan. You leave.

It sounds like a waste of an appointment slot and it is one of the most useful things we do. The hardest part of returning to dentistry after years away is almost never the treatment. It is the walking in. Doing that once, with nothing at stake, removes it.

We will ask what has gone badly before, what you would want us to do differently, how much you want to be told, and what your stop signal should be.

We will not ask why it has been so long. We do not care, we have heard every version, and the reaction you are braced for is not coming. Nobody here is going to make a face.

We also will not give you a treatment plan on that visit, or a price, or a lecture about what waiting has cost you. That is the whole point of the appointment.

When you are ready, which might be that week or might be three months later, we do an examination. Photographs, x-rays if you agree to them, and a look. Still no treatment.

Then we talk about what we found, with your own images on the screen, and you decide what to do and in what order. Most people want the thing that worries them most dealt with first, which is usually the right instinct.

From there, short appointments, one thing at a time, first slot of the morning. Four comfortable visits beat one long one you dread.