Legal Question in Medical Malpractice in Virginia
Dentist Negligence
I recently went to my dentist with an extremely sensitive tooth issue. I told him which tooth had extreme sensitivity and he did an X-ray and did not see anything abnormal in the x-ray . He mentioned that the next tooth up had a black spot at the tip of the root, but he said it was a nerve bundle and that was not abnormal. We decided for me to try a night guard too see if the problem stemmed from teeth grinding at night. That did not work, so when I went back, in even more pain, I told him, again, which tooth was the problem tooth. He said we should do the root canal since I was in such pain. Two days after the root canal (still in pain), I looked in the mirror because I felt something funny on another tooth and noticed that he did the root canal on the wrong tooth. I confronted him on the issue and he said he decided to do the root canal on the other tooth because of the black spot at the tip of the root. He never told me he was doing it to another tooth!!!!! I confronted him on the fact that he said the spot was a nerve bundle and it was normal and he said he made the best decision.
So, I am been in pain since the end of June, out of dental insurance and will not have any until January.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Dentist Negligence
The care and treatment which you've described as received from this dentist would probably be considered to be within acceptable standards prevailing in the community at the time it was provided to you (in my opinion, and, if so, you would have no viable malpractice claim.
However, I see nothing improper in your demanding to have another root canal done at this dentist's expense on the tooth of your choice since you're still in pain and the treatment which he's provided thus far apparently has done nothing to alleviate it.
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