dentistry

Informed Consent in Dentistry: Can Change Impact Personal Injury Cases?

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An excellent article appears in the Spring 2017 edition of the The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics (vol. 45, pp. 77-94) written by Kevin I. Reid titled “Informed Consent in Dentistry.” The article discusses how informed consent is respecting the ethical right of an individual to make decisions about one’s body and only have actions undertaken on their body with authorization without undue influence. In order for informed consent to be considered valid in dentistry the following must occur: (1) the patient is competent and has the ability and capacity to understand and decide, (2) the dentist discloses material information, (3) the patient understands, (4) the patient is voluntarily entering the arrangement, and (5) the patient provides authorization to go ahead. Every patient however comes to a different degree of understanding to authorize treatment based on their prior dental experiences, education, motivation, attention, … Read more

Deadly Dentistry: Death in the Dental Chair

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If you are thinking about having any dental work done for yourself or your loved ones you should know that in many cases it is not without risk and can even be deadly. There are many cases of death occurring in dental offices over the years for both children and adults having dental procedures. The Dallas Morning News made an in depth piece exploring various issues surrounding death in the dental chair and the story indicated cover-up and not holding offenders accountable. The seven part piece was published in 2015 and is available at http://interactives.dallasnews.com/2015/deadly-dentistry/index.html. It is a lengthy investigative piece, so you will need a fair amount of time to get through the entire story. For convience the links for each of the seven parts are also provided separately below. Part 1 http://interactives.dallasnews.com/2015/deadly-dentistry/part1.html Part 2 http://interactives.dallasnews.com/2015/deadly-dentistry/part2.html Part 3 http://interactives.dallasnews.com/2015/deadly-dentistry/part3.html Part 4 (which has … Read more

What to Ask the Dentist Before Children Have Sedation

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In July of 2017, Today ran a nice piece titled “9 questions to ask your dentist before your kids go under sedation,” written by Linda Caroll, July 10, 2017. The article discusses some recent children dental deaths that occurred in the last few years. If you have been on teethremoval.com before, you know that many cases like these have been covered in the past and you can see more on http://www.teethremoval.com/death.html and http://www.teethremoval.com/dental_deaths.html. The article says that doctors from the American Academy of Pediatrics are speaking out about the dangers of sedating children for oral surgery. It is said that it is unclear how many children or adults for that matter, have died in the U.S. during dental procedures. However, some work by the Dallas Morning News in 2015, indicates a dental patient dies nearly every other day in the U.S. The state … Read more

Continuing to Assess the Death Rate of Dental Treatment

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For years on teethremoval.com one has been able to find more information about deaths from dental treatment and wisdom teeth removal. In addition it has been estimated that the death rate in dentistry occurs in 1 out of every 400,000 cases. Due to a few recent review articles that appeared in 2017, the mortality rate in dentistry page at http://www.teethremoval.com/mortality_rates_in_dentistry.html has been updated. Two articles that may be of note are H. Mortazavi, M. Baharvand, and Y. Safi, Death Rate of Dental Anaesthesia, Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research, Jun., Vol-11 (6): ZE07-ZE09 2017, and N. G. Reuter, P. M. Westage, M. Ingram, and C. S. Miller, Death related to dental treatment: a systematic review, Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral Radiology, vol. 123, iss. 2, pp. 194-204. e10, Feb. 2017. The first article performed a review of over 20 studies focused on death … Read more

Dental Fads Busted!

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There are many dental fads that exist in the world of dentistry. To help you learn more about dental fads, an infographic is presented below which busts four dental fads. The first dental fad is tooth jewelry. The reality is that tooth jewelry can irritate the gum tissues and wear away tooth enamel. The second dental fad is a fruit diet. The reality is that a high fruit diet lacks basic vitamins like Vitamin B, Vitamin D, and calcium. The vitamin deficiency and high amount of acidic content can lead to tooth decay. The third dental fad is activated-charcoal toothpaste. The reality is that charcoal is abrasive and can damage the tooth enamel and gums. The fourth dental fad is dental grills. Dental grills can aggravate tooth decay and damage gum tissue. This infographic is from https://www.medicaltourismco.com/