Bringing Human Dignity Into Medical Experiences

Heidi Kasa
5 min readDec 15, 2022

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I took my 2.5-yr old son to the dentist to get his infected front tooth extracted. The experience makes me wonder if there are better ways to support each other through difficulties, but especially through the helpless and vulnerable and undignifying experiences of the American medical system.

My son is verbose. Not always the most articulate — he’s 2 — but he’s surprisingly certain in expressing himself. I’ve noticed that he processes a lot by talking out loud. Just describing things to me can help him settle down to sleep for the night. During a prior medical experience with him, a doctor went to examine him and he protested, tightened, and pushed away, saying she was hurting him, and her response was to: 1. back off, then 2. engage him verbally by asking if she needed to be gentler, then 3. wait for him to say yes. I witnessed the magic of how, when she asked and listened to him, he then completely relaxed and let her do whatever she needed to do (including things he hated us parents doing, like routine cleaning).

While I’ve learned to ask and listen more in interactions with my son, I also recognize there will be moments when that won’t solve everything. He will still have to go through something hard, and as Adrienne Rich puts it, learn how to meet the pain. Getting his front tooth pulled out at 2 years old is one of those situations.

Had he been asked and listened to, I’m not sure if he would’ve thrashed or screamed less. I do know the dentist and her assistant didn’t establish any basic trust or connection with him, as he saw it. They were professional and nice, and maybe they thought they were gaining trust or connection with him, but I’m sure he could tell they were making placating comments and using soothing behaviors to get him to do what they wanted. While they may have quieted him a little, they didn’t address his core concerns. They were treating him like a problem to solve, instead of waiting and listening. But dentists and assistants and nurses and doctors are all human, too, and how we fail to see that and address them as such is part of the problem…but that’s an issue for another day. And there will be situations, I’m sure, where a medical professional cannot meet his dignity as a human first, and will just need to force him into cooperation.

But here’s where I could’ve done better. I could’ve talked to him before this whole thing, telling him what was going to happen, that it was going to be hard, but we would be together, and it would be hard for both of us, but he needed to do it because the tooth was bad. I could’ve provided more context and reassurance for him.

I’ve been thinking about containers, lately. From Winter of Winter Clark Wellness, I’ve learned about creating containers in my life for writing, or for other things I want and need but don’t yet have. If you create the container, you are actively creating the space in which to put that thing, when it arrives. Readying the space.

I could’ve helped create a better container for my son to rest in during this tough procedure. And maybe it wouldn’t have changed how helpless he felt, or how vulnerable he was, but perhaps it would’ve addressed him as a person at some point before the procedure, so maybe it would’ve given him a little dignity back. Or maybe he would’ve felt vulnerable but not as helpless. I don’t know, but it would’ve been worth a try.

I also think about the lessons I learned from my son’s birth. As I’ve said in my other articles on Medium, the rests between contractions are very important. And I learned this again, here in the dentist’s office. The procedure to remove his tooth took several steps. First, they needed to put the numbing gel on his gums where they were going to put the Novocaine shot. Then, they needed to put the shot in twice, once in the front of his tooth and once in the back. The fourth step was pulling the tooth out.

We didn’t really have access to rest spots in between, because they are not built into the medical experience (though I clearly think they should be). But before they pulled the tooth, both the dentist and the assistant left the room to get the X-ray machine. That gave my son and I a few minutes to fully rest between the difficult parts. I could hold him, talk to him, sing to him, and put my hand over his heart until his heartbeat slowed its frantic pace. Then we were more ready for the last part.

But I wish I had built in my own rest periods between, so that both he and I could be stronger for the harder parts of the experience. It seems silly now not to know this, because any good personal trainer knows the rest periods in between are very important.

So, if you are taking a child or someone else in for a difficult procedure, maybe it would be helpful to:

  1. Prepare them verbally with a description of what will happen and a reassurance that you’ll be there to help them as much as you can with what might be a hard/painful thing. Note: This doesn’t have to be detailed or telling them everything. But just say some things may be hard, but you’ll be there with them and in between, and you can rest together in between the harder parts.
  2. Think about the procedure in terms of breaks or how you can take a little private time with your family member or self. Try to fully give yourselves over to the time of rest and connection.
  3. Talk with them after about what happened and how you tried to help.

I actually did #3 — talk with my son — later that night. All day, he was giving me the stink eye and avoiding me after the dentist visit, because he was holding a grudge against me, and may or may not have been traumatized by us (and me, his mother, in particular) forcing him down and subjecting him to pain and discomfort and uncertainty against his will. But, my talking to him seemed to help. After I said I tried to help him as much as possible, he said, with a big smile on his face: “You were great. You’re the best.” And then: “You’re my dad.”

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Heidi Kasa
Heidi Kasa

Written by Heidi Kasa

Heidi believes in the in between spaces. She writes fiction and poetry, which you can find at www.heidikasa.com.

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