Originally written in Traditional Chinese: 包包裡的那副看診手套
Yesterday I went to Dr. Lu Yu-cheng's book launch.
At the entrance, a sign stopped me: "Si chaud, j'adore."
One of the hosts lives in France, but he is Taiwanese, not French. In French the phrase means something like "so hot, I love it," in other words, eat it while it's hot. Read it aloud with a Taiwanese accent and it sounds almost exactly like "sio-tsio tsiah-toh," Taiwanese for "let's all go to the banquet together." One sentence, two languages, the same invitation. Only a Taiwanese person living in France could have come up with it.
But the moment I keep thinking about came later. Halfway through dinner, a friend asked about a problem with his teeth. One of the dentists at the table took a pair of exam gloves out of his bag, put them on, and looked right there.
Who brings exam gloves to dinner?
It turns out the gloves were not always there. He used to take a quick look whenever a friend asked. But as a doctor, he needs to follow hygiene steps before he examines anyone, and an impromptu check always skipped that step. So he started carrying gloves.
It was not a habit he was born with. It grew out of many small moments of "not quite right," fixed one at a time. That impresses me more than natural talent. Expertise is not being perfect from the start. It is fixing what falls short, again and again, until it becomes part of you.
I am one of the endorsers of Dr. Lu's book, a guide for parents on children's teeth from pregnancy to age 12. He and his wife cover two halves of one path: he cares for children up to 12, and she cares for teenagers and adults.
I also learned something new that evening. Sometimes tooth pain does not start in the tooth at all. It can come from the muscles of the face. Beyond their deep work on teeth, they have built a special focus in this area. A good doctor does not only look at where it hurts, but asks where the pain comes from.
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