While it has been my good fortune to find a good Dr. and benefit from his talent as a foot surgeon; I had the unfortunate experience of malpractice, at the hands of the accompanying anesthesiologist. On 3/23/10, I entered a outpatient Medical Clinic with the full expectation of having a second successful foot operation by my Dr. When I regained consciousness after the surgery, it seems I had been entered involuntarily and unsuccessfully into a championship prize fight with Mike Tyson and had my two front permanent crowns knocked out. I'm just kidding about the fight.
The nurse standing beside my bed with a small cup containing my crowns informed me that I had supposedly bit down on the green standard oral airway she had in her other hand. I know this piece of equipment very well, you see I was trained on how to use it as a US Army Medic. I examined it and didn't see any embedded teeth marks were my teeth would have bit down on it to have caused this type of damage, so I immediately thought that my dentist must have done a lousy job putting these crowns in. She told me they were the best and would last five years. I am Lucky enough to be a Black Jack Pit Boss and a part time SAG Actor, so my two front teeth are very important in my line of work.
So,I got up from the post-op bed, told my friend to take me directly to the dentist office. When I arrived at the dental office minutes later, I gave them the cup of teeth and proceeded to read them the riot act about doing faulty dental work and told the dentist I demanded to have new crowns put in and not one red cent charged to my account.
I must say to her credit, she came back brain cells on full throttle and said lets take a look and sat me in the chair, took x-rays and discovered that my tooth was now chipped and the crowns were not split in half but missing the backs, because the backs were still on the numbs in my mouth. It was explained, if you had bit down, your teeth would be split in half like a cracked sunflower seed. The reason the backs of your crowns are still stuck to the back of your teeth is because they were forcefully pushed in from the front.
I thought what a detective you would make, needless to say I was man enough to stand there and apologized in front of that whole staff. They were gracious enough to give me an out and said your still under the anesthesia, but who wouldn't be outraged.
My mother( R.N., B.S.N.)was the runner-up oncology nurse of the year three years ago. At her funeral a nurse stepped up to the podium and said, you don't know me, but I want you to know what kind of a person let alone professional , your mother was; while training me on patient care we were leaving a patients room and mom commended me on technique and then asked me what color was the patients hair. She would always say to us that healing isn't always in the medicine.
I told the anesthesiologist that my grandfather died at the hands of alcoholic anesthesiologist during a simple tendon repair operation, so I would appreciate it if he would take extra care during the procedure. Obviously, he wasn't listening.
I have personally spoken to patient relations and Quality Risk Management. When I spoke to Patient Relations originally right after the operation, they relayed the facts about my teeth to Risk Management and they said ,to have me have my dentist forward the bill to her.
As of March 30, 2010,Risk Management has had a change of mind and decided not to pay $ 2645.00 to replace my permanent crowns. Know I feel like I have been abused and gone way past the point of civility.
I now want $ 2700.00 for the crown replacement and $ 4800.00 for the malpractice of chipping my tooth not to mention their corporate arrogance, insensitivity toward me the patient and covering up the Dr.'s false statement. I am going to send a compliant to the medical board of california. I want to know how to file for malpractice on him without a lawyer also.
regular american
Personal Injury and Med. Malpractice Lawyers usually don't charge unless you win the suit, so by all means get a lawyer .
Pangolin
Since it costs about $ 30,000 to defend a suit, the anesthesiologist's insurance will pay. Of course, they'll have to pay a lot more to cover the cost of your lawyer than if they just took care of it in the first place.
While dental damage IS a risk with anesthesia, the way you have been treated sounds awful.
I hope they come to their senses and pay without you having to sue them, but it looks like a lawyer might be able to better persuade them better than you can. Sometimes a forcefully worded letter is enough to do the trick.
Good luck. I'm sorry that happened to you. We're not all jerks.
Orignal From: Do I have grounds to sue the Hospital and Doctor. They knocked my crowns out and chipped one of my teeth?
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