There are a few challenges, and fasting is definitely one of them. I just went back to back today, and actually I feel -- even after half a session, half a day I feel drained. But today I went the whole day, and I tell you, I feel really drained right now. My mouth is dry. And when I got back just now, I was just flat. I’m glad I got home in one piece.
The other challenge is actually communication. Because we want to explain to them what the process is like, we also need to ask some questions about their health. And the basic is that we need to find out who they are because we need to identify that we have the right patient in front of us. But language can be a very big barrier. We are so used to, as dentists, to communicating to your patients, reassuring them, explaining things to them. And not being able to explain what they are going through or what they have to go through is very tough for us. We cannot just say, “forget about it”, and just shove it down their nose. We cannot do that. We do not want to do that. So actually language is a big barrier.
We end up using sign language, actions to hopefully -- even the tone of the voice. Because they cannot see your smiles, we cannot smile and reassure them. So we have to (watch the) tone (of) our voice to talk to them in a calm and reassuring manner, and that also calms them down. And then give them time to react and adapt to the actual test.
