Saturday, January 19, 2008

Dental Care $20 Hand Job $90


Dental Care
Originally uploaded by johey24
Times have been hard for dentists in Japan. Only last summer, weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun (8/9) reported a growing number of dentists are in frantic financial straits and forced to put in long hours just to pay their bills.


Ok, that dude my be Chinese but the Jaoanese are like the British when it comes to teeth.

The problem is clearly due to the double-whammy of an oversupply of dentists and declining demand.
[...]
Which brings us to Jitsuwa Knuckles (February) and the story of Aiko, a 19-year-old dental assistant currently employed at a clinic in Osaka.

This particular clinic has several chairs, which are situated in separate rooms. Which means that while the doc attends other patients in neighboring rooms or goes back to his lab to fit implants or whatever, Aiko is left alone to minister to the patient.

Aiko might be alone in the room with a male patient for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, and during this time, there's not a heck of a lot she can do. She can assist the patient to expectorate into the sink, and then replace the cotton wool swabs in his mouth and make sure the suction apparatus is doing its job.

After that, she may still have time on her hands. Did we say time? On her hands? Hehe.

So she can pass the time by making small talk. Or, for and additional 10,000 yen($93.59 USD) -- not covered by health insurance, unfortunately -- she can give the patient a hand job.

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