wisdom teeth extraction

16 Year Old Female Dies After Wisdom Teeth Removal

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I was very saddened to recently hear about the death on May 5, 2011, of a young 16 year old girl who was a sophomore in high school in a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was in the ROTC program and had aspirations to join the Army. Miciah Bonzani went into cardiac arrest while under anesthesia to have her wisdom teeth removed. She was taken to a hospital, placed on life support, and then died 2 days later. She was born with a heart defect which had required two surgeries before her first birthday. What is also troubling to me about this unfortunate death is that one of the media organizations that covered the story WPXI/Pittsburgh.com, did not even mention that it occurred while having wisdom teeth extracted.  They simply called it “dental work” and an “outpatient medical procedure”, although … Read more

Patient Consultations for Wisdom Teeth Removal

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In my last post on the Well Informed Patient I discuss how Dr. Thomas B. Dodson talks about “…a new brand of well-informed patient.” In that post I attempted to make that case that many patients are not being well informed at all when it comes to wisdom teeth extractions and is partially due to the current model of informed consent in the U.S but also failure to provide their patients with current scientific evidence and information. In this post I will look specifically at 2 examples of patients who have in the past few years visited oral surgeons to discuss the possibility of having wisdom teeth removed and/or had wisdom teeth removed. From their writing one can make the case that they may have benefited from being better informed and aware of the fact that no current evidence supports … Read more

17 Year Old Female Dies After Wisdom Teeth Removal

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I was very saddened to recently hear about the death of a young 17 year old girl who was a junior in high school. The woman went into cardiac arrest while having her wisdom teeth removed. She was left in a coma and died 10 days later on April 6, 2011. She was involved in multiple choral programs and was hoping to be a professional singer. What really is upsetting to me about this is at the recent memorial service for her on April 17, 2011, her mother described the doctors calling this very unfortunate and premature death “freak.” One high school senior at the same school discussed how she was still planning to have her wisdom teeth extracted later in the week. The appropriate response should call into question the validity of extracting healthy wisdom teeth from young teenagers … Read more

Wisdom Teeth Promotion and Marketing

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I have previously talked about PBHS Inc. on this blog and website. They design many websites for oral surgeons and also help with branding and promotion. I have some issues with them in that they provide websites with nearly identical content for oral surgeons to use https://blog.teethremoval.com/oral-surgeon-websites-similar-content/. Even so they do make quality videos on wisdom teeth although of course fail to disclose many of the more serious complications that can occur and the fact that no evidence thus far supports or refutes removing healthy disease free impacted wisdom teeth. https://blog.teethremoval.com/wisdom-tooth-extraction-video/ On PBHS Inc.’s website, on their third molar education and marketing plan section they say, while of course talking to oral surgeons and dentists “Think about this: One –and only one– extra set of wisdom teeth per week will net you approximately $50,000 more annually. If you do one … Read more

Impacted Wisdom Teeth Removal

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Jim Du Molin over at The Wealthy Dentist is one of the leading Internet marketing experts for dentists in North America. He often does surveys and the latest one he has done and shared involves impacted wisdom teeth and their removal. http://www.thewealthydentist.com/SurveyResults/195-Impacted-Wisdom-Teeth.htm His recent survey of 230 dentists showed the majority (53%) of the dentists surveyed felt that wisdom teeth should usually be removed, but not always. A full 7% said that impacted wisdom always ought to be extracted. On the other side 20% of the dentists surveyed said many impacted wisdom teeth do not need to be removed.  Jim also published many comments from the dentists regarding the survey which are available on his website to view if you are interested. As is clear from teethremoval.com, I go into detail demonstrating how there is no current scientific evidence to … Read more