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In my experience, the majority of dentists are criminal crooks. It‘s generally not nice to trick and steal from people, but dentists are in the unique position of leaving their victims in severe, chronic pain that can only be fixed by other dentists. I myself suffer from varying, chronic pain after a pointless visit where two "tiny" holes were drilled.
Well it's only anecdotical of course, but I had a similar experience a couple of years ago that made me very confused about dentistry in general. At the time a had a small tooth ache so I was planning to visit a dentist to check it. I was living in Switzerland, where dentist costs are very high, but I was about to go on holiday to Tenerife, where prices are much lower. So I checked on the Internet and chose the denti…
I called around a bit more, and then another dentist said she had no time but she was on duty that night in the ER. Said I could just pop by in the hospital somewhere after midnight and she would have a look. In five minutes my tooth was glued together again. I paid 40 euro in cash and that was that.
Always be skeptical when the person giving you a diagnosis also directly benefits from giving you a particular diagnosis. This goes for dentists, banking and so much more.
Can you give an example of a professional for whom this isn’t the case? Maybe a general practice doctor referring to a specialist? But often this involves trips back to the GP for checkups as well.
Always be skeptical when the person giving you a diagnosis also directly benefits from giving you a particular diagnosis. This goes for dentists, banking and so much more.
Can you give an example of a professional for whom this isn’t the case? Maybe a general practice doctor referring to a specialist? But often this involves trips back to the GP for checkups as well.
It’s really not fair to take an example of one unethical dentist and sell the story as “the truth about dentistry”.
In all seriousness, fraud is rampant, and cash pay or low regulation fields like dentistry can easily take advantage of patients and their health literacy.
In ophthalmology, you hear of “laser” cataract surgery, “floaterectomies”, telling patients they need cataract surgery well before they are symptomatic, dry eye treatments.
Hell, in cardiology there have been multiple cases of fraud uncovered where doctors were putting pacemakers and defibrillators in people that didn’t even need them!
Maybe I’m jaded, but when there exists such a profit incentive, we as healthcare providers struggle to “do no harm”. I’m lucky to be surrounded by mentors and other doctors that try and exemplify the moral behavior patients expect in healthcare, but imagine if I had a mentor early on like Dr Lund in the article..
https://archive.ph/qIIn0
If you find yourself relying on Archive.today a lot then I also recommended the "Bypass Paywalls Clean" add-on for Firefox: https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-firefox-clea... .
All dentists I've tried, found by various methods (including recommedation from a GP I trust) have been dishonest and/or incompetent. A small business, serving laypersons who cannot evaluate the work, is prone to it. I think the only way is to stick with one dentists, so they see you as a long-term investment. funfact: Yelp was inspired by the difficulty of finding good dentists. Now I'm interested in DIY dentistry.…
Well it's only anecdotical of course, but I had a similar experience a couple of years ago that made me very confused about dentistry in general. At the time a had a small tooth ache so I was planning to visit a dentist to check it. I was living in Switzerland, where dentist costs are very high, but I was about to go on holiday to Tenerife, where prices are much lower. So I checked on the Internet and chose the denti…