I’m a dentist and I can tell you exactly what he likely meant. Slovenia of course was never a part of the USSR but the USSR had largely friendly ties with Yugoslavia, which Slovenia was a part of. And part of that was knowledge exchange in Healthcare between the Soviets and Yugoslavia/Slovenia.
The USSR developed a number of… Interesting… dental techniques independently of the west. To be clear, these techniques DO work, but they are distinctive and a little bizarre to us westerners. So your dentist likely looked in your mouth, saw some of those techniques – which are occasionally done in the US as well, largely from ex-Soviet/ex-communist dentists – and made the connection. As for why he asked Slovenia specifically? A lot of Slovenian dentists migrated to the US and brought their know-how over.
And as for why the dentist acted that way, he thought they’d say, “Holy shit! How did you know that?” or “No, but I had a dentist from Slovenia!” and they’d be amazed by the dentist’s knowledge.
The dentist had no fallback plan if his amazing guess didn’t work, and he didn’t know what to do, so it became super awkward.
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And as for why the dentist acted that way, he thought they’d say, “Holy shit! How did you know that?” or “No, but I had a dentist from Slovenia!” and they’d be amazed by the dentist’s knowledge.
The dentist had no fallback plan if his amazing guess didn’t work, and he didn’t know what to do, so it became super awkward.