The Biggest Loser

I will wrap up part 3 of my series on easy ways to maintain dental health in adult life next week. I was going to write on Cecil the lion last week but wanted to follow the story a little longer.
By now, everyone has heard of Cecil the lion’s demise in Zimbabwe at the hands of an “American Dentist.” There has been much written about the fact that the hunter was a dentist. In fact, the day after the story broke about Cecil, The Washington Post published a column entitled “Why dentists are so darn rich.” It quickly referenced how much the “rich” dentist paid for his hunt and then bombarded dentistry as a profession.
Does it matter who killed Cecil? It depends on what you read. There have been many dentists or other dental professionals who have quickly jumped in defending the profession. Due to typical media spin, there seems to be just as much talk about the “dentist” as there is about the obvious other side of this story.
Well, I’m not going to defend the dentist on this story. I am also not going to defend hunting or “trophy” hunting. It doesn’t matter to me personally who killed the lion. Most of the commentary I have seen on this story finds the act deplorable. It you read the paper or watch the news you are quick to realize that there are many people doing bad things in our world. There are also many people doing good. It is up to each of us to form our own opinion; for this story, it should be about the act and not the profession of the actor.
But no, the story of killing the protected lion was not enough. Dentistry is an easy profession to pick on. The “anti-dentite” (Seinfeld reference) group has a never-ending list of topics to choose from. In the column I referenced earlier, the author hits many of the highlights but starts with this:
“At $54,000, the reported price of the trip that an American dentist took to Zimbabwe is nearly as shocking as the death of Cecil, the widely known and universally loved lion he killed while he was there. The neighborhood dentist seems far removed from the upper echelons of medicine, someone who comes in for a few minutes at the end of a cleaning to check your teeth and ask about your kids, occasionally doing a filling or root canal.”
I know a lot of dentists. I don’t know any who “trophy” hunt. I know some dentists who are wealthy by societal standards, either from a lifetime of commitment to their work, or having the added benefit of generational money. I know many dentists who are not wealthy, in the monetary sense, but live extraordinary lives. I know others who are struggling with many aspects of their lives. I know some dentists who are sincere good people and others who do things which I would never associate myself with. This can be said of anyone from any profession.
Who is the biggest loser in this story? Cecil the lion is a big loser. While I am sure we do not know all the facts of this story, it is difficult not to have compassion for this beautiful creature and his senseless killing. The dentist hunter is a big loser in many ways. Many, if not most, believe he deserves whatever happens to him. If you feel that way it should be because of the act he committed and have nothing to do with his profession.
The staff, formerly employed at his dental office, are losers. They lost their job because of his actions. I feel sorry for them. They were not mentioned in anything I read. But, the biggest loser of all, in my opinion, is the media. Only a loser would spin this story to create a headline to read.