Job Satisfaction

James Alfred Wight’s (James Herriot) animal stories,  named “All things bright and beautiful” “All things wise and wonderful”  “All creatures great and small” and “The lord god made them all” are one of my all time favourites. Even though they are known as animal stories, they are more about the owners of the animals and other human characters that the author came in contact with and are endearingly written about.  The stories in

general give a beautiful picture of life in early 20^th century in Yorkshire, always making me feel “oh, I should have been there, then”.

There is a vast difference between his time, society and patients and those of mine but I come across many things that I can relate to his work as a person providing and living on providing health care. A few decades into the profession, many a times he mentions about the new techniques, materials and medicines available to him, which were not there when he began his work and wonders about the huge difference that they made to his life as a veterinarian.

Thirty years after beginning work, I can count a few such things in my life as a dentist, one of which is the availability of the composite resin or the light cured acrylic for dental fillings which I had never heard when I began my work.

The broken tooth in the picture would have required placement of a crown or ‘cap’ involving considerable amount of work spread over a few days and the support of a very good lab technician to get the result which I managed to obtain in an hour by rebuilding the broken part over the stump using the composite material.

Fee received - Not worth mentioning.

Job satisfaction - priceless.