Ask any dentist, or probably doctor too, just how annoying the 21st century phenomenon of internet self diagnosis is, and you will be met with a resounding sigh. We’ve all done it, a tickly cough that a quick google search reveals could be a Grade 4 pulmonary carcinoma or a childhood rash that is almost certainly meningitis. Ask anyone who knows me well and you will find that I am not prone to over reaction. Unless a limb is hanging off, I will avoid intervention. This has lead to some interesting conversations with other parents who may have gone away with the impression of me as a callous mother or dentist and numerous challenging phone calls from school and nursery who clearly feel that a slightly raised temperature requires immediate hospitalisation.

The birth of the internet has given everyone immediate access to a wealth of medical and dental knowledge that us fools spent six years in training to achieve. If I’d realised I could have been a dentist based on a series of Youtube tutorials, think of all that money and time I could have saved.

Sarcasm aside, there are a small group of patients who seem to only come along for dental check ups to test and challenge me. I had to bite my tongue with the father of a small child with rampant decay, who assured me that the whole of the dental profession were wrong in thinking that fluoride toothpaste helps prevent fillings. A wacko website that he had found somewhere ‘proved’ that we are all being slowly poisoned by Colgate (or any other household brand of toothpaste). The trickiest of patients are the ones who have a background in science. I can almost guarantee that every one of the numerous academic sorts that I treat will manage to think of a totally obscure and wildly random question to unwittingly shame me with. Nothing spoils a day as much as a professor of biochemistry testing my professional knowledge. “So what exactly are the chemical constituents of the white filling material and how do they work?”

“What is the bacterial composition of saliva?”

Questions like these immediately transport me back to a dingy examination hall in the mid 90s. Like Pavlov’s dog, my pulse rate quickens and I can feel my temperature rising. There would have been a time that I probably could have had a shot at answering them but I can guarantee that like every other normal dentist in the country, those facts left my brain approximately 24 hours after sitting that exam.

Just when I think I’ve done my homework and revised the answers, along comes someone with a question even more off the wall. There’s nothing more heart-sinking than someone pulling out some internet research article and expecting me to be a world expert. I don’t know the exact chemical composition of toothpaste and to be honest, I don’t feel too bad about that. Be assured patients of Botley dental practice, you’re in safe hands. A bit like James Bond, I work on a need-to-know basis. If I can’t answer your question, I’ll do a quick google search. Just please don't make me sweat.