This is one of those statistical anomaly kind of things that seems more stereotypical than sensible, but apparently it’s true: St. Patrick ’s Day is a great day for dentists: the couple business days following March 17 are always some of the best days of the year in terms of emergency patient procedures. While it would be easy to blame this on a bunch of drunk Irish people going around knocking each other’s teeth out, the data don’t really correlate to Irish populations, Roman Catholic populations, or really anything that can be considered Irish.
Sikka Software, a business analytics sort of company reported that nationwide, emergency dental visits increase by 64% (i.e. 164% of average) on the business day following March 17 across the country versus an average dental business day. The data comes from about 10,000 dental practices scattered around the country. It’s actually pretty interesting to dig into the data broken down by state. Here are a few findings from the study:
- Vermont was the only state that didn’t see an increase in dental emergencies.
- Delaware, Mississippi, Maryland, and Nebraska all have an increase of more than 150% in dental emergencies.
- Utah, Texas, Montana, and the District of Columbia all had an increase of more than 100% in dental emergencies
- The data don’t really correlate with much. Example: Delaware has a crime rate 41% higher than the national average, but only an 11% increase in dental emergencies.
- The only strong correlation found in the study: being a male. Males account for pretty much the entire increase. Women overall see a 6% drop in dental emergencies.
- There were five states where women actually see an increase in dental emergencies: Texas (+39%), Rhode Island (+32%), Nebraska (+22%), Vermont (+21%), and Maryland (+19%). Don’t mess with Texans—men or women!
So, those of you from Orem, Utah please be careful out there! We’re open for business if you need us the rest of the week, but take it easy on the green beverages. Save some of that energy for March Madness. Go Cougs!
-Nicolas K. Young, DMD
