Dentist numbed wrong tooth- do I complain?

[Lilyflame]

Went to private dentist.
already had consultation
cracked lower tooth
dentist was going to drill out filling (already half drilled out) check the crack/root/nerve.
first injection he did at the back,
second one I couldn’t really feel, third one I felt at upper gum.
so I asked wasn’t he going to numb the bottom.
he went very quiet, checked his notes, then apologised.
he got the wrong tooth! If I hadn’t said anything I think he’d have drilled the top tooth.
he got on with the job, apologised again and gave me a discount.
but I just don’t understand how this can happen.
the tooth had a big hole in it, already half drilled out.
Should I make a formal complaint?

Well done.

‘Only human’ dentists can cause harm. If he had gone on to drill the wrong tooth he could have been sued. It might be in his interest to review his practices so as to ensure step by step mistake -avoiding checks in the future.

What if this had been a child who did not speak up ?

A polite letter to the dentist and the practice would not go amiss.

This dentist was not an NHS dentist.

That’s what I’m thinking Penelope. Like a concerned complaint!
imagine if it was a child or a very nervous person

Im sure you have never made a mistake at work, op

Well thank God you have a voice in your head, eh so no harm done?

A fully qualified consultant went to put a steroid injection in the wrong tendon and I had to stop him. Never crossed my mind to complain .

I mean it’s not like he’s not aware of it, I’m sure he’ll learn from it. What good would a complaint do? Someone tells him not to do it again…..and he feels more shit 🤷‍♀️

You suffered no loss or harm. There's no compensation to be had

I would just change dentist if you’ve lost confidence in him.

Utterly astonished that people think this is OK. It shows total incompetence on his part and I certainy wouldn't trust him anywhere near my teeth again.
And yes you should complain, luckily you spoke up OP but the next person he is useless with could be a child or a vulnerable person who doesn't have the confidence to speak up or complain when they are having the wrong unanaesthetised tooth filled.

Identifying the right part of the body to do a procedure on is surely basic skill level for a HCP. Or would his apologists be fine if they went into hospital for appendicitis and came out having had a hysterectomy, because you know its all roughly the same area and easy to get muddled ?

@ScrollingLeaves I never thought it was.

Ah, my apologies @ArcticBells
I though you must have thought the dentist was NHS as in my personal experience it is not difficult to find private dentists.

I wouldn’t go back there again.

OP narrowly avoided harm.

She's also not asking for compensation, but whether to complain. Seeking compensation is not the purpose of all complaints.

OP, like all patients, should be able to rely on the relevant professional to do their job carefully and conscientiously. This includes treating/operating on the correct body part. She shouldn't need to be on alert for a dentist dealing with the wrong tooth. This isn't a fair expectation of patients, not least because patients often can't see what's going on and doctors (generally) further make this difficult because so many of them are so reluctant to explain procedures and results in detail.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Well said.

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.

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?

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?

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.