For many people, it is important to look their best in order to have enough self-confidence. And one way to look great is to have a complete set of beautiful white teeth. This is why many individuals, especially those whose work requires them to face people, invest time, effort, and money to maintain the health and beauty of their teeth.

As a dental professional, it is your duty to help people keep their teeth beautiful and healthy. It is also part of your responsibility to make sure that you properly diagnose your patients of any dental problems they have and provide appropriate treatment. Failure to do so can not only make your patients suffer from unnecessary pain due to oral problems, it can as well lead to a legal pursuit.

Dental Law Partnership

Just recently, a dentist was forced to pay one of his dental patients a huge sum of £17,000 as a settlement fee. Ms. Penelope Christoforou, a 61 years old salon owner, filed a complaint against Dr. Antonis Petrou-Amerikanos after suffering from years of unbearable pain and eventually losing two teeth following the botched treatment performed by the said dentist.

Dr. Amerikanos, a cosmetic dentist and a clinical director at Agno Dental and Aesthetics in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, performed bloched treatment to Christoforou in 2011 and gave her filling. Christoforou started to experience tooth pain after the treatment. She took it for granted thinking that it was just a normal operation aftereffect.

She visited the dental clinic once every three months to make sure everything is well. The dentist also gave her the assurance she needed. It was in 2013 when Christoforou started to feel severe pain. This prompted the doctor to perform a root canal treatment. Dr. Amerikanos also carried out crown fitting.

However, despite receiving these dental procedures, the patient still continued to suffer from intense pain which made her experience sleepless nights. Plus, the crown seemed to look strange.

This led the salon owner to seek for a second opinion from another dental professional. She visited another dental practice and learned that she had tooth decay. She then had her two decayed teeth extracted.

Christoforou decided to contact the Dental Law Partnership and to have her dental records analyzed. It was then that she learned that the decay was already there since 2011 and it was made evident in the x-ray result. There is no doubt that the dentist gave her the filling and fitted a crown over a decaying tooth.

Because the dentist failed to provide precise diagnosis and proper treatment which made Christoforou to suffer from endless pain, to pay for additional treatments, and to waste much time visiting the dental clinic more often than needed, he was forced to pay a settlement amounting to £17,000.

Dental Loupe

Should the dentist focused on the x-ray results and used the right precision instruments like Schultz optical loupes, he would have avoided paying for settlement and losing a huge amount of money. Not only that, failing to provide better dental services can also hurt the reputation of the dentist and the dental practice.