lawsuit

The Defensive Patients Guide to Wisdom Teeth Removal

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Medical doctors are often accused of practicing what is known as defensive medicine. With defensive medicine, a doctor will deviate from the normal practice of medicine in order to perform a medical treatment or run a diagnostic test in order to reduce potential exposure to a malpractice lawsuit. This leads to treatments and tests that are not clinically necessary and is often said to be a cause of overtesting and overtreatment. Defensive medicine is discussed as serving to protect the physician from a lawsuit by the patient. What is not discussed is the idea that a patient can also practice defensive medicine to protect the patient from losing a legitimate lawsuit against the physician. Applying this concept to wisdom teeth surgery, the following is suggested for a patient to help protect themselves from losing a legitimate lawsuit against a physician, … Read more

Litigation Resulting from Anesthesia in Oral Surgery

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A very interesting article titled “Medical Malpractice Litigation Associated With Anesthesia in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery,” by Ji et al. appears in the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (vol. 76, pp. 1606-1610, 2018). The article attempts to explore malpractice in oral and maxillofacial surgery where anesthesia is involved that does not purely rely on media reports. In the study the authors used the Thomson Reuters Westlaw Next Database, to identify medical malpractice cases filed from 1985 through 2017. The cases included must have involved an oral and maxillofacial surgeon as a defendant. Furthermore, complications had to be attributable to local, intravenous, or general anesthesia delivered and the cases had to have progressed to trial by jury in a state or federal court. The authors identified an initial list of 112 cases but reduced the sample down to just 13 … Read more

Four and half million settlement in wisdom teeth extraction death

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The family of a 31 year old woman who died later on the same day after having wisdom teeth removed in September 2011 was awarded a $4.5 million settlement. The woman had her wisdom teeth removed at a hospital in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She presented for surgery after an infection in her lower left wisdom tooth. The woman had known issues, including a narrow airway due to a congenital vascular malformation on the right side of her mouth and both she and her father told doctors she could not be intubated for that reason. Depsite being provided this information the hospital staff did not note it in her her pre-operative file and made an initial incision that caused significant bleeding. After this was done, doctors attempted to intubate the woman with the use of a laryngoscope blade which led to … Read more

Two million settlement in wisdom teeth extraction death

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A 17 year old woman died in June 2015, after having her wisdom teeth removed. This has been reported on http://teethremoval.com/death.html since 2015. The woman was from Minnesota and went into cardiac arrest during the surgery. The woman’s parents in early 2017, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the oral and maxillofacial surgeon. The court documents said that the surgeon and staff did not appropriately anticipate or respond to the emergency. The lawsuit said there were dangerous actions, from incorrectly administering general anesthesia to failing to provide proper monitoring during surgery. The attorney said the parents sued the doctor as it “…gave the family a better understanding of how the death of their daughter came about… They had the courage in a difficult situation to seek the truth about why their daughter died.” The attorney also said “I’m absolutely convinced that … Read more

The Importance of Reputation Management for Dentists

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The dental malpractice law field is alive with some companies encouraging patients to sue dentists. It is possible for dentists to have as many as three or more complaints lodged against them at a single time. This causes stress to dentists and dampens the quality of care provided for patients. Whilst we can’t, unfortunately, change the culture that allows this to occur dentists can take steps to try and manage their reputation and reduce the risk to have a suit. These techniques can be used to improve customer interactions and try to mitigate any negative feelings or resentments patients may feel . So how can dentists manage their reputation more effectively? Patient Interactions The most important place to start is with patient care. With often heinously busy schedules dentists can skip over some of the niceties of patient interactions. However, when it comes to the perception of … Read more