Explicating Dentistry

Surely there must be certain indispensable
traits associated with people who aspire
to the art and profession of dentistry?
One must, of course, be self-assured
controlled and deft, patient and skillful
in persuading perfect strangers that it is
perfectly logical that they invade, as it were
your mouth, that orifice into which you
permit only that which sustains your life
and the edifice within which your soul is
enshrined. Possibly, even probably, that
person whose profession reaps generous
financial security has inherited a genetic
streak of malicious sadism, conveniently
rendered antiseptic by the very profession
being practised. And we unskilled and
submitting to the pantomime of dentistry
unable to utter a word as the skilled
hands move within, deploying tools
extracting them, injecting materials while
the unfortunate patient is in pain, incapable
of uttering more than a sigh, exhibiting
expressions of discomfort, studiously 
unnoticed by the excruciatingly busy
impressively muscular hands performing
their nimble acrobatics -- and the thought
suddenly occurs; those who submit reflect
a symbiosis; maladroit masochists all!

dentist