To whom or what do we owe our daily harvest? That understated capacity to function as a dentist, to sit next to our yearning patients and perform minor miracles each hour of our working day? What is it that enables our assistants to flank said patients and relieve them of the excessive detritus generated by the intense diligence of the dentist? How does one muster the confidence to grace the engine room that is the dental surgery, to employ its technology and tools to impress the healthiest possible smile on a waiting room of patients breathless with anticipation?
Well, the answer is so simple that it almost escapes you, but is so profound that it can be given in two simple words: the compressor.
While lesser mortals merit their own limited human ability for their success, real clinicians understand that the single biggest contributor to their productivity is that humble unit furiously shuddering away in the deep recesses of the practice. As if possessed of a rabid desire to burrow into the Earth's core, the compressor gives of itself an unyielding and unconditional vibration, a musical timbre resonating throughout the building, filling the background with its song and sound.
That's our song. That's our sound.
But we take our air for granted. We don't see it, hear it or smell it, but it fuels the very fabric of our work. Even the most sensitive barometer of prosperity cannot fully measure the force of nature gusting through the arteries of every surgery, injecting each handpiece with the energy to achieve 400,000 thousand revolutions per minute.
Mankind may be slowly killing this planet scouring it strata for fossil fuels, but dentists are saving their patients with an innocuous fuel of unlimited abundance. It is not enough that it engorges our lungs with every breath we take, filling our impatient corpuscles with the oxygen of life, but air provides the power that released dentists from the bondage of slow pedal-pump drills decades ago. Air is first; air is best and it is that way because it's free.
Dürr compressors are not simple mechanisms of tubes and bolts. They are paragons of engineering that would leave even Isambard Kingdom Brunel himself speechless with awe. We celebrate our compressor as the champion of our work.
The jewel of the practice lives not only in our cupboards but also in our hearts. As we slip on the tunic, wrap around the mask and sheath our hands in the gloves, we know that we are not truly ready until that switch is pressed; that we cannot start our day until that familiar sweet revving can be felt through the floorboards. Our day is made brighter by the presence of one who asks for no introduction, doesn't expect any deference; a member of the team that utters no words and offers no drama, and yet performs with resolute loyalty. You won't see a picture of it on the wall in reception, and you won't hear any patient asking after its welfare. But no smile can be rejuvenated or cavity restored without it.
And yet there it sits, every day without vacation, not intending to flounder in the backwash but to lead each day into a bright new dawn.
We salute it. Our compressor. Dürr compressor.