Dentist numbed wrong tooth- do I complain?

But he didn’t. You got the correct treatment. You literally have nothing to complain about.

No I agree with you at the back sounds like an ID block. I did say 3 injections at the top for one tooth would be a very rare occasion

My dentist has the tooth to be operated on, displayed on a large screen which i can also see, she'll confirm with me which tooth/area i'm in to have treatment on, after injections, she'll fit a rubber dam to my mouth, isolating the tooth and any amalgam/debris being swallowed, everything checked and doubled checked.

I don't think i'd complain as such but i would write to the practice and i'd then find a better dentist.

Many years ago, an NHS dentist extracted the wrong tooth, complaining meant i got deregistered.

Injecting at the back sounds like classic ID block

And for removal of a filling?

Concerns about dental professionals
I think it's worth reporting and changing dentist!

This absolutely should be a complaint. To give an injection not required is a failure of process. A complaint would mean the processes and controls would get reviewed. It's like mixing up the ceiling and the floor, it shouldn’t happen

I had a rubbish dentist that replaced and refilled the wrong tooth, a front one, not where I had the pain at the same side further back. I wasn’t upset as I’d been begging my previous dentist to replace the aged looking front tooth filling but he wouldn’t as there was nothing wrong with it apart from the colour. I did make a complaint and luckily was able to change dentists within the surgery

Possibly if it was a 6 - mesially and distally to avoid the tuberosity and then palatal but that would be on a very rare occasion

Yes complain!

Well removing a uterus instead of an appendix is clearly massively different to removing a filling from the wrong tooth

One causes catastrophic harm. The other, the filling is just replaced. It's not a reasonable comparison.

I don't really understand. He numbed at the back which would be an injection for a lower tooth?

You would never do three injections for an upper tooth?

absolutely this - a Stop Before You Block moment before injecting would at least mean double checking the right quadrant of the right patient's mouth was being looked at.

You’ve misunderstood the point that he only did not remove the wrong tooth because of the OP stopping him, and, had his patient been elderly or young, or just in assertive and nervous, there is no reason why he’d have been stopped.

Therefore there needs to be a review of procedures in this practice to avoid this sort of mistake in the future.

Q. Why was he numbing the wrong site?

A. Because he was about to drill the wrong tooth.

Q. Could it be taken as certain that any given patient would have realised what was about to happen and would have warned him?

A. No. Certainly not.

Q. Why was the dentist about to drill the wrong tooth? What notes or X rays had he forgotten to check?

A. We don’t know, but it matters.

So complain then. Why ask the question if you only like the answers you agree with?

That is not a like or fair comparison. It's far easier to get individual teeth muddled up, especially given the volume a general dentist works at , relative to a surgeon in a hospital. You don't have 20+ identical other appendices to get mixed up with, do you?

Have you looked in your mouth? Teeth are not identical. Also he had access to notes, xrays and could use his eyes to see a cracked tooth. Also in cae you missed it he tried to numb OPs top teeth the problem was with a bottom tooth. A dentist who can;t tell the difference between a top and bottom jaw ? Possibly excusable when dentists doubled up as barbers, in 2024 not so much.

All the more reason to ensure that there are appropriate safety checks in place then.
I anaesthetised for dental lists in hospitals for the best part of 30 years and the safety culture improved significantly in that time, largely because people reported and acted on adverse events and near misses like this.
"Anyone can make a mistake" is precisely why really robust processes need to be implemented.

That is not a like or fair comparison. It's far easier to get individual teeth muddled up, especially given the volume a general dentist works at , relative to a surgeon in a hospital. You don't have 20+ identical other appendices to get mixed up with, do you?

No it wouldn't. Recently, extracting the wrong tooth was removed as a "never event", so numbing the wrong site certainly wouldn't fall into that category.

Well said.

I agree with all the other HCPs saying that this would be considered a serious incident if it had occurred in an operating theatre. No significant harm occurred but it was certainly a narrow miss and by the sounds of things harm was avoided more by luck than good management.
The issue is not so much that the dentist made an error, but that, from what the OP has described, it doesn't sound like this surgery has a robust process to prevent such issues. Or ifvtgey do, it wasn't followed. Of course HCPs are human and make mistakes and I wouldn't immediately assume that the dentist is incompetent. But there should be checks to minimise the chances of human error. It doesn't sound like that happened.
Fortunately the OP felt able to raise her concerns but someone else might not, so this should precipitate a review of processes by the surgery. And maybe it will, but I know from experience that historically it's been pretty common for near misses to be brushed under the carpet as "phew, no harm done, let's move on" so opportunities to improve safety are missed.
I don't think the OP should be demanding the dentist's head on a plate or expecting financial compensation, and I don't think she is. But it's not at all unreasonable for her to want to know more about what happened and what is being done to minimise the risk of it happening again in theatre.

Didn't charge for the extra anaesthetic?! It was his mistake?!

actually, having just re-read the list of never events, extracting the wrong tooth and the wrong dental local aren't on the list of never events. Not sure if that includes anaesthetising the wrong jaw though - that seems a bit more of a cock up than getting the wrong tooth but right bit of mouth.

He will be kicking himself and won’t make the same mistake again. A complaint won’t help in any way at all. Either he’s already learned the lesson or he hasn’t but the complaint won’t change it and will just make him feel worse. Being a dentist is a hard job. Just move on. It’s not ‘wrong site surgery’ it’s a misplaced injection and he would have double checked the tooth before drilling.

Some of the comments on here are unbelievable!!! Op is completely correct, she SHOULD complain, just to make sure some other poor person doesn't get the wrong tooth removed or whatever.

I'm a scrub nurse and we do checks again, again and AGAIN before starting surgery to make sure we are doing the exact thing that's written on the patient's consent form, and that it's on the right side with a big fat arrow drawn on them. Because otherwise stuff happens and people get the wrong bit cut out. Fuck ups can have serious consequences!!

Incidents like this are at best sloppy, and at worst downright dangerous.

No. Don’t complain. This situation was resolved then and there.

as per pp's, if this happened in hospital it'd be a never event and involve an enormous amount of paperwork. Have always found it rather baffling that dentists don't seem to have the same procedures as us for a) consent and b) WHO safety checks/avoiding wrong site procedures. My response would depend a bit on how well I knew the practice/ trusted them generally but I'd probably be asking what their processes should be for avoiding this sort of mistake/ why it failed this time/ how they will avoid it failing again.