AboutGlenn A. Dorfman Expertise Twenty-four years experience in personal injury, medical malpractice and medical product liability law. Practice currently concentrated on the diet drug (fen-phen) litigation. Qualified to answer all questions regarding injuries and the law, except for worker`s compensation.
Question My daughter of 3yrs. lost her front bottom tooth. The next morning(Sat.)I called the dentist office and it was closed so they gave me an emergency phone #. I called the # and left a message. After a half an hour I called back to the office and checked to see if I wrote the number down correctly, and I had.
I called again and left another message, but I never received a call from the Dentist. I had to call my peditrician about the tooth and they couldn't fathom that no one returned my call from an emergency #.
My question is this considered malpractice? It seems to me that this is negligence to the upmost. Please let me know your thoughts on this.
Answer You haven't explained to me what was the "emergency" because a tooth came out. Was it a baby tooth? What was the urgency? Was she bleeding heavily or what? In answer to your question, not returning a call from a concerned patient is not in itself malpractice. Perhaps if there was a life threatening problem and the doctor knew the patient could have such a problem and told the patient to call if something urgent arose, maybe there is a good complaint to make but no, it would not be malpractice. There is always the emergency room in such a case. Also, even if malpractice has been committed, there has to be damages. For instance, if the patient with the life threatening problem who could not reach his doctor did go to the ER and got treated and saved, there is no case against the doctor. And since dental problems, especially minor ones are not life threatening, expecting a dentist or an associate to be on call 24/7 is not realistic. They wouldn't open the office for your daughter after hours anyhow unless something very serious was going on. I think you have unrealistic expectations and became a little too frantic over what was probably a relatively minor problem. What was so urgent about losing a front tooth anyhow? Sorry, I fail to understand. Write again if I am missing something.
Firstly, where did you get the idea that once any tooth comes out, it can be re-implanted? That's ridiculous. Secondly, you wrote to a lawyer and you complain that I answered like a lawyer. How ridiculous is that? If you weren't interested in the idea of a malpractice case, which would have also been ridiculous, why did you write to me? So the whole world didn't stop, drop everything, and rush to your aid when your precious child lost a baby tooth. OH MY GOD! It's all about you isn't it? And to call a lost baby tooth and "emergency" is just craziness and dangerous because people won't take you seriously in the future, when perhaps you need that. You have far too much anxiety, in my personal opinion.
