Dr. Pickering, I Presume?

One day, during one of my many visits to Alex’s surgery, I mentioned that I’d always been curious about what went on behind the swinging doors of an operating theatre.

“Come and watch one,” he replied casually.

I laughed, assuming he was joking.

He wasn’t.

A few days later, I found myself standing in the pre-operative area of Bentley Hospital, about to observe a wisdom tooth extraction. To say I was excited would be an understatement. I felt as though I had somehow been admitted into a secret society. This was real medicine. Real surgery.

After an elaborate scrubbing ritual that seemed designed to remove several layers of skin, I was dressed in a surgical gown, cap and mask. The transformation was immediate. I caught sight of myself in a reflective surface and barely recognised the man staring back.

I looked important.

I looked competent.

I looked like somebody who knew what he was doing.

In reality, I didn’t know a scalpel from a fish knife.

Years of watching medical dramas had, however, taught me one vital skill. Surgeons always held their hands up in front of them after scrubbing. So I dutifully stood there with both hands raised like a man surrendering to armed police. A nurse approached and carefully eased sterile gloves onto my fingers.

Good grief.

I even had an assistant.

At that moment I felt like Dr Kildare himself.

Alex, meanwhile, was thoroughly enjoying the charade.

He introduced me to the patient, who was lying on a trolley awaiting surgery.

“This is my assistant, Mr Pickering,” he announced.

The poor woman looked up at me through half-closed eyes and nodded politely.

Then, turning to the assembled medical staff, Alex added, “Peter is a mature-entry dental student.”

A student?

This was news to me.

I smiled professionally while trying not to laugh. If anyone had asked me to identify a dental instrument, I’d probably have pointed at the sink.

Soon afterwards, the patient was wheeled into theatre and transferred onto the operating table. Machines beeped softly. Staff moved with quiet efficiency. Everything seemed calm, controlled and reassuring.

The anaesthetist placed a mask over the patient’s face.

“Count backwards from ten.”

“Ten… nine… eight…”

She reached seven.

Then she vanished.

Not physically, of course.

But in an instant she ceased being a person participating in events and became an unconscious body being worked upon. The change was startling.

What happened next rocked my world.

The anaesthetist tilted her head sharply backwards and inserted a laryngoscope.

For reasons I still can’t adequately explain, that single sight hit me like a freight train.

My stomach dropped.

My vision narrowed.

The room began to spin.

A wave of nausea surged through me and I realised, with growing alarm, that I was about to become the second patient in the operating theatre.

I made a rapid and undignified retreat.

Outside, I collapsed into a chair, lowered my head between my knees and concentrated on not embarrassing myself.

After a few minutes, and with what little dignity I had remaining gathered together, I returned.

Then I saw something I have never forgotten.

Alex stood on the left side of the operating table. His left foot was firmly planted on the floor, but his right knee, shin and foot were resting on the operating table itself. It looked as though he was halfway through climbing aboard the patient.

For a moment I simply stared.

Surely this wasn’t part of the standard surgical procedure?

Yet there he was, using every ounce of leverage he could muster as he wrestled with a wisdom tooth that appeared determined to remain exactly where nature had put it.

Alex pulled.

He twisted.

He levered.

He grunted.

He was a man on a mission.

From where I stood it looked less like dentistry and more like a Greco-Roman wrestling match. The tooth simply refused to surrender. Occasionally a fragment would break free and shoot across the theatre, ricocheting off metal surfaces while Alex continued the battle with unwavering determination.

The entire scene was surreal.

This wasn’t the calm, precise surgery I’d imagined from television dramas.

This was trench warfare.

At some stage I was handed an instrument and instructed to hold it inside the patient’s mouth.

This seemed like a spectacularly bad idea.

There I stood, pretending to be part of the team while desperately avoiding looking directly at the battlefield in front of me. Every instinct told me that if I watched too closely I would once again be horizontal.

Eventually the offending teeth surrendered and the operation was declared a success.

The patient, blissfully unaware of the struggle that had just unfolded, would wake later with no memory of the event. I often wondered what she would have thought had she witnessed it from my vantage point. She probably felt as though she’d been run over by a Mack truck.

That day cured me of any romantic notions about surgery.

More importantly, it cured me of any desire to have my own impacted wisdom teeth removed.

Alex had already informed me that mine were even more difficult than the ones he’d just extracted and beyond what he was willing to tackle himself. Having witnessed his version of “routine” surgery, I wasn’t exactly rushing to seek a second opinion.

For decades afterwards, whenever my wisdom teeth caused discomfort, I would remember that operating theatre.

The smell.

The sounds.

Alex wrestling with stubborn teeth.

The fragments flying through the air.

And the terrifying realisation that one day I might be the one lying on that table.