[masraum]

Originally Posted by RNajarian

I teach dental ethics at a Dental Hygiene program here in CA.

Without seeing the diagnostic information (x-rays, charting, models, etc) I would venture to state the patient has a pretty good case. 32 different procedures all done in the same day!

A crown typically takes 1/2 - 1 hour to complete, a root canal 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Fillings, say 15-30 minutes each.

So at least the patient received full mouth anesthesia and was in the chair for 13 hours?

How much anesthesia did the patient really receive, there IS a limit.

I would love to see post treatment x rays/ photos.

It is customary to only do one quadrant at a time.

Stories like this give dentists a bad reputation

Per the article

“Katie required a slow, thoughtful, careful and measured response to her disease. Trying to fill every hole in every tooth in her mouth in one visit is not only the antithesis of what was indicated, it is not humanely possible to achieve in an effective or constructive manner,” Goldstein said, adding that it is “inconceivable” to address 28 teeth in 5 1⁄2 hours.

I will say that I have had 2 fillings done with no anesthetic because they were very small and required minimal drilling. So, maybe many/most of her teeth had very small issues.

Still, 4 root canals and 8 crowns sounds like a lot. But, what gets me is the "significant injuries" and "disfigurement". And per the article, the dentist used too much anesthesia. My guess is that the woman was a pain in the ass and pressured the dentist into doing a bunch of work at once. It could be that the dentist is a hack, or it could be that he allowed himself to be pressured by the patient into doing something that he shouldn't and now the person that pressured him is suing. It could go either way, and there's really no way to know.