I wish I had the energy to come up with a great knock-knock joke or punny riddle to contrast the intensity of life in prison with the fabulous lifestyle enjoyed by most dentists. It would be like pulling teeth to think up such a line, so instead I’ll say straightforwardly that working in a prison might be the ONLY WAY to envision myself as a hardcore health professional.

Aside from literally pulling peoples’ teeth in our own parking lot after dark, a career in prison health is about as antiestablishment towards modern privatized dentistry as it gets. Am I that cool and counter-culture? Probably not. In fact, I am so thrilled with the low level of hardcore stress involved in the life of a dentist, that I decided to pursue it as a career. Would prison dentistry be more or less stressful than running your own clinical business? Who knows. At least I’m now officially invited to find out for myself:

In two weeks, I’ll be spending several days in Baltimore with hundreds of other dental students from all fifty-something tooth schools in the U.S. Can we say PARTY?!? Bahahahah. I have faith that us dental students can be just as irresponsible as every other kind of student I know, and therefore we will hopefully have a fabulous time together.

Blurred for security. Like it matters.

All I can say is that I hope our evening receptions at this conference aren’t sponsored by the Bureau of Prisons, because judging by the budget available for these fancy recruitment fliers, we would be enjoying cold water and stale popcorn together if they were footing the bill. No offense, Prison System, I know you’ve got THREE F!@#!N MILLION of my fellow citizens to take care of these days. Must be real hard for you to recruit healthcare providers when you’re so busy recruiting all those dangerous marijuana abusers and untreated mentally ill adults around the country. Hrmph. Don’t get me started.

I’ll censor myself now, before I piss off some family members for protesting their personal experiences with the law. Suffice to say I have a thoroughly conflicted view on American law and order. But this was about dentistry to begin with, right? A severely more benign American industry than criminal justice, so I’ll conclude with: Y’ALL BETTER FLOSS NOW!

Happy Friday.