They say you never forget your first time. For me, it was a Thursday afternoon. I’ll call him Walter, and he was a 74-year-old man with a kind smile, a well-trimmed gray beard and a small cavity on an upper left molar. As I sat him back in the chair, he seemed at ease, oblivious to the fact that I had never worked on a patient before, oblivious to the pounding of my heart and the gallons of adrenaline coursing through my veins.
“Relax,” whispered Rochelle, the upperclassman there to assist me. I just smiled at her. I was more excited than nervous; I had been ready for this moment for a long time.
“All right, Mr. Johnson,” I said lifting my drill. “I’m going to get started. Let me know if you feel any discomfort at all.”
Soon, Walter had a shiny new filling, and I had experienced my first successful treatment. There was only one little problem: midway through drilling, I looked down to see a large wet spot spreading on Walter’s pants. Stunned, I turned away from him. “Um, Rochelle,” I whispered. “I don’t really know what to do here. I think Mr. Johnson had an accident.”
She surprised me by laughing. “Look at your hand piece,” she said, motioning to the drill in my hand, a droplet of water slowly running down the handle. Evidently, this was a common problem: a leak in the hose gave patients a shower along with each amalgam filling.
After finishing up and walking him out, I strutted through the hallway with a new bounce in my step. For the first time in my life, I felt a sense of purpose. I knew for sure that I wanted to be a dentist.
This was a big deal for me, because I had spent years trying to decide what to do with my life. Although I was the son of an endodontist, I had never considered following in my dad’s footsteps. I had been a premed student until my junior year, when I realized that I hated premed classes and didn’t want to be a doctor.
Around that time, I took a semester off from Stanford to trek in Nepal. When I returned, I changed majors five or six times, finally graduating with a degree in psychology and absolutely no interest in being a psychologist.
I had picked up the philosophy that if you don’t find a way to turn your hobbies into a career, you’re selling out. Music and writing were my passions, and so I pursued them doggedly. I was published in local, regional and national magazines and newspapers. I recorded and released two albums. But the closer I got to living the dream, the more I realized that it wasn’t really what I had envisioned.
And that’s how I found myself at the age of 25, an unemployed Stanford graduate living in my parents’ basement. To earn money, I was playing with two bands whose music I didn’t especially like, teaching guitar lessons and writing freelance articles for local publications. I had an impressive résumé and a really cool beard, but I still felt lost. And that’s when it happened: I sold out.
Nowadays, I prefer to think of it more as growing up. Every kid has dreams—being a rock star, a famous actor, a novelist. But for the majority of us, those dreams never quite come true the way we thought they would. Earning a living as a musician meant having to be in a band, regardless of how I felt about its music. And being a writer meant having to write what other people told me to. Only occasionally did I get to play or write what I wanted.
When I decided to take a closer look at the real world, I discovered that childhood fantasies are not meant to come true. If the Osbournes have taught us anything, it’s that even rock stars don’t live the stereotypical dream of success.
But the thing is, when you embrace the real world, you find that it’s much better than trying to live your fantasy. I’ve discovered that I enjoy dentistry. I still play music and write, but now that I don’t depend on them for money, I do them for fun. I’m much happier this way. Although, frankly, I do miss the beard.
STEVEN RAPHAEL, ’00, is a third-year dental student at University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Dentistry.
