Wisdom Teeth Removal Death in 2016 in Florida: Settlement Reached

A 17-year-old man died after having wisdom teeth removed in April 2016 in Florida. The man had the procedure performed under conscious sedation. During the surgery the man stopped breathing which led to irreversible brain damage and he suffered cardiopulmonary arrest during administration of the anesthesia. He was in a coma for two days before his parents made the painful decision to pull the plug on life support and then he died. There was no known medical history that might have contributed. Further, there was no anesthesia record that could be found to show the man’s blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen were being during the surgery. An attorney for the dentist who performed the surgery said that vital signs were recorded on an anesthesia record which was given to the EMS personnel when the man was transported to a hospital. A … Read more

Twenty one year old woman improving after wisdom teeth removal caused brain injury

A young woman from Kansas is improving after spending months recovering from brain injury that occurred after having wisdom teeth removed in March 2018. The woman was finishing up her senior year of college and planning a wedding prior to going into cardiac arrest and suffering brain injury from wisdom teeth surgery. She spent a month in intensive care and then moved to a rehabilitation center for seven months. While at the rehabilitation center, the woman learned to walk again with the help of a robotic exoskeleton. She now uses sign language to communicate and has regained some lost vision. Some members of the woman’s community helped to set up an online raffle to help chip in for expenses now that the woman is attending physical therapy three times a week to continue to improve. Originally the doctors thought the … Read more

Recent Celebrities to have Wisdom Teeth Removal

In 2018 and through early 2019, there were at least 5 famous celebrities to have their wisdom teeth removed.  The first celebrity is Dua Lipa, a 23 year old woman, who is a famous musician. She even shared on Instagram in a post dated March 11, 2018, an x-ray showing that she has 33 teeth. In a subsequent post dated March 13, 2018, Dua said she was in awful pain and had to cancel some scheduled tour dates with Bruno Mars. After having the wisdom teeth surgery she shared in a video three tips to survive wisdom teeth removal surgery. She said 1) ice cream helps, 2) you should sleep a lot, and 3) you should drink lots of water.  The second celebrity is Violett Bean, a 22 year old woman, who is a famous actress. She shared a photo … Read more

How Can Dentists Better Set Expectations About their Career Choices to Avoid Couples Therapy?

Dentists these days are graduating with ever increasing amounts of debt as a result of loans needed to graduate from dental school. This topic has been covered before on this site such as in the post Will Dental School Debt Lead to Future Counseling?. Such debt may take a heavy toll on dentists and the patients they serve. One way debt from dental school can adversely impact a dentist is in his or her romantic relationships. This is touched on in the post Divorce and Dentistry: Repairing Broken Relationships. In this post one of the common contributors to divorce for dentists is their spouse not having clear expectations about work and finances. A new dentist may take many years of paying down debt before there is money left over for nice houses and fancy vacations. Perhaps if the spouse or … Read more

Divorce Among Dentists and Physicians: Is More Couples Therapy Needed?

An interesting article titled “Divorce among physicians and other healthcare professionals in the United States: analysis of census survey data,” by Ly et al. appearing in BMJ (350: h706; 2015) discusses some rates of divorce among physicians and dentists compared with other professions in the United States of America. The authors were motivated to perform the work because it has been speculated that long hours and unpredictable work hours often worked by doctors leads to more divorces. In the study the authors looked at data by the US Census Bureau from 2008 to 2013. The data included age, sex, race, current marital status, occupation, annual income, and weekly hours usually worked. The authors included only those who were ages 25 or greater. Physicians, dentists, pharmacists, nurses, lawyers, and healthcare executives were identified based on a self reported occupation. The sample included … Read more