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Buried deep in the copy is the REAL point -- "performed by less skilled personnel".
With this thing, you don't need an anesthesiologist and a DDS -- you just get the dental assistant to do it.
In medical settings, you get some techie instead of an MD.
Pushing work onto less-skilled and therefore less-paid people is the way healthcare goes these days. Keep those profits up, medical industry!
(I've spent a lot of time in dr's offices over the decades and witnessed this erosion of skill/training. Nurses doing doctors' old jobs, technicians doing what registered nurses used to do, etc.)
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@Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.: I thought the same thing when I read it. "Now you can bring in the person who has no skills dealing with children to perform a painful procedure on your stoned kid."
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@Annalee Newitz: "Yes, why call a professional to treat your child like a human being, when you can drug them into submission so an underpaid anyone can hack away at their mouth!"
It's still gonna be unpleasant and hurt like hell later, the kid just won't yell and squirm about it. Pretty soon they'll start throwing the tantrums when they see the gadget. "No, Mommy I don't want to wear the helmet!"
Then the sensors break after months of kids playing with the snorkel and some kid gets too much nitrous and the assistant doesn't notice the breathing slowing and doesn't know how to remedy the situation...
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