Not your fault, of course, since that was the original headline.

It sounds like the dentist is going to be punished by having 20 of his own teeth pulled. While I think the punishment might fit the crime in this case, I was a bit surprised by the headline.

I didn't see it at first, but now that you've pointed it out, I see how someone could be confused by that headline. That gave me a chuckle. Who knows, there are probably some countries (or states) where they do that kind of thing as punishment for crimes.

I hadn't heard of the case before, while the locals probably knew that a woman had died during the extraction of 20 teeth.

Headline-writing is not an easy task!

That shouldn't be attempted on a healthy person, much less someone with that patient's history. The case looks good for the plaintiff, to me, at least with the facts presented so far. The only question I have is, why did the patient allow a dentist to pull 20 of her teeth at once?

i would be tempted to say get it over with in one shot, but......

if you're having all your teeth pulled, you probably have a lot of bad teeth that ache. Some of them might be abcessed, or God knows what, and all that poison gets released into your system at once. Even one or two teeth like that are enough to kill even a healthy person. No matter how much I would like to get it over with, I would never let a dentist try that on me.

i can see thinking that. which is why you have professionals to tell you that is a bad idea.

We have a disconnect with how we're taught to deal with professionals. Our initial indoctrination is to trust them. Then, when something goes wrong, the blame is put on us.

I found this case personally interesting because it reminded me of something that happened to me. Oddly, the physician was also called Patel-which I understand is as common as the name "Smith."

Most of us expect our doctors and dentists to know the risks and benefits better than we do.

Sadly, this isn't always the case.

I just hope she didn't suffer too much. I've seen a lot of incompetence from doctors over the years, and it can be shocking how clueless some of them are.

The medical boards and patient privacy laws also protect doctors and dentists who harm their patients, so that dentist could still be practicing despite this incident. His license has not been revoked, despite the charges.