174. Chemo Country of Origin: a Memory

 I decided to add a significant memory of what I recall seeing while in dental therapy training during the late 1970s.

I’ve alluded previously to the fact that I trained as a dental therapist at a technical institute from 1978 till 1980.  After graduating we were hired by the provincial government to provide dental services to school aged children free of charge.  The work entailed cleaning, drilling, filling and, if necessary, extracting primary teeth, administering local anesthesia, taking dental impressions, putting in spacers, etc.  The first year was mostly taken up by courses such as anatomy, oral pathology, radiation, etc. and the closest we came to a tooth was the “(in)famous” upper adult molar we had to carve out of wax and got graded on.

The following happened during my second year of training.  Before we got to hone our skills on live patients, we were practicing on real human teeth embedded into plaster casts.  At one point in time I needed some dental material out of the storage room.  Scanning the said room, my eye caught sight of a barrel the size that the Bulk Barn uses in its stores.  On the side of it was stamped: Country of Origin: Vietnam.  My curiosity got the better of me and I just had to see what was in the container. The barrel was chockful of human teeth.  This fact was never mentioned by any of our instructors.

Back tomorrow with something a bit more upbeat.  SanTeh!