A Treatise on Dental Aesthetics
In addition to an art museum and a center for the arts, Princeton, New Jersey has a “Center for Dental Aesthetics.” These institutions are more common than one might think, and I’d like to ask what they say about art and dentistry.
Dental Aesthetics, of course, is just a name for what some still call dentistry. But it is not the only name for it. Philadelphians who prefer the austere mid-century classicism of Mies van der Rohe can take their teeth to Modern Dental Concepts, while those who prefer a more current avant-garde aesthetic presumably go to Advanced Dental Concepts. Residents of New York face a no less dizzying array of choices. Tribeca Dental Design and Tribeca Dental Studio share a neighborhood, but presumably embody two wholly different schools of the dental art. It’s not the humble work of filling cavities that one pays for, it’s the concept, the aesthetic, the design that is valued.
Dentists seem willing to claim any competence other than that of simple dentistry. In New York, there is also the Dental Phobia Treatment Center, which bills itself as a psychiatric practice as much as a dental one. There is an office that offers a bed to nap in before or after, this almost makes them a hotel on paper. There is also the Manhattan Dental Spa and various practitioners of holistic and alternative dentistry. The insecurity runs so deep that many claim to be practitioners of dental “cosmetics,” a name that evokes the career path of night-school alumnae. But few beauticians seem so embarrassed of their own profession.
Dentistry is an interesting middle case in the prestige spectrum of American careers. To become one, one needs professional training in some ways comparable to that of a doctor or lawyer. But one is trained to do little more than pull, shift, and whiten teeth. One is not a priest of the metaphysical “law.” Unlike a doctor, one holds no power over life.
There may be something particularly comical about the rise of dental Concepts and Aesthetics, but the reluctance of dentists to think of themselves as workers in a humble and dignified craft only reflects the latest advance of a longstanding trend. Once the humble workman could serve as a model for even the most exalted artist or skilled technician. Now advanced technical competence, or even the romantic vision of the artist, must be the model for the most ordinary gentleman.
Not to snark too hard matt but I noticed that all your examples are in the NYC orbit. Frankly I don’t know if this qualifies as a phenomena. No one is better than the good peeps of NYC for crapping on a cracker and calling it art. I feel free to observe this being half New Yorker myself.Report
I advocate a more mild form of NYC exceptionalism. Once I was driving through Lincoln, Nebraska, capital of my home state, and saw (roughly) JESUS IS LORD BODY SHOP AND AUTO REPAIR not far from Christ is King Church. You won’t see such names in most parts of Manhattan, but Lincoln does have Halsted Dental Aesthetics and Advanced Dental Concepts.Report
While I think you’re seeing service providers responding to marketplace preferences here, I’d sign off on the idea that dentists are more eager than other professionals to relabel themselves for marketing purposes.
One of the unresearched, unverified statistics floating around my law office is that dentists have the lowest or nearly the lowest self-esteem of most professionals, and among the highest suicide rates. The armchair psychology reason proffered to explain this is that dentists must of necessity invade the personal space of their patients and inflict pain (or at least discomfort) in order to ply their trade, and that this takes a psychic toll on the practicioner. My experience with dentists as clients is that indeed there are frequently some self-esteem issues, which are either overcompensated in the form of some well-recongized flavors of narcissism, or allowed to take over in the form of ceding operational control of their offices to domineering staffers. (Not to say that lawyers don’t sometimes suffer from the same things, of course.)
So it could be that the reason a “dentist” is so willing to abandon that label is the ability to adopt a different psychological attitude about her work. But mainly, I think you’re seeing dentists noting that their patients don’t like going to the dentist but do like the feeling of doing something about their physical attractiveness, and the use of labels caters to that cocktail of vanity and apprehension.Report
It has significantly less to do with the self-esteem of DDSs and more to do with the competitive marketplace. The categories of procedures from which dentists (as distinct from endodontists, orthodontists, and other specialists) have historically derived revenue are a) bi-annual cleanings and b) fillings. As dental health in general improves and filling technology improves (significantly reducing cracking and other problems that require replacement), the number of fillings is going down.
Tooth-whitening, straightening, and other aesthetic modifications, on the other hand, are always in demand and you can charge a premium for them without generating ill will in the market because they’re voluntary procedures.Report
Quite right that dentists are responding to marketplace pressures, but the force that inspires them to adopt such silly names as (in yet another case) “A Dental Concept” is a cultural one that honors abstract professions over simple crafts. My argument implicit in this post is that all professions should be understood, in some way, as humble crafts.Report