Dental negligence is a vast topic and can include many types of dental malpractice cases. Here is a list of the most common areas of dental negligence.
Extractions – Extractions can cause many patients to be hospitalized with severe infections. An extraction with local anesthesia can cause numb lip or face, which often causes permanent numbness.
Endodontic procedures – These procedures include instruments left in canals, nerve and sinus perforations, air embolisms and life-threatening infections.
Dental implants – These involve the patients receiving deficient to non-existent treatments like root canal overfill etc.
Periodontal disease – This involves the dentist’s failure to diagnose or treat periodontal disease in a timely fashion. Often the dentists in these cases had not taken X-rays prior to the treatment and had not done any periodontal probing.
Orthodontics – These cases often involve patients losing many or some of their teeth due to the dentist not performing any radiographs.
Dental anesthesia complications – These can involve death or numbing due to improper devices or performing the anesthesia incorrectly.
Dental infections – Dental infections can be serious and result in brain abscesses or septic arthritis.
Dental injections – Improper injections can cause nerve damage and numb lips. While in some cases patients have informed the dentist that the nerve had been injected, but the dentist had not removed the needle or had opted to re-inject.
Adverse drug reactions – Adverse drug reactions can cause an allergy or death in some patients.