Consider this: I had a pain in one tooth and went to a dentist who accepted my insurance. She drained my infection two days in a row, and put in a crown within a week, which was a different color. The crown was put in by her assistant and another dentist who didn’t even CHECK to see if the abscess in my gums had dried up or not! I understand that abscess is hard to treat, but at the same time a follow up by the SAME DENTIST who did the first root canal would have been professional.

According to my current endodontist, who is excellent, “This resulted in the spreading of infection”.

And, I ended up losing my teeth, and had to get an expensive dental implant. All this could have been prevented, if the dentist who did my root canal had been present and had checked the abscess on the day of my crowning.

After some enquiry, I found out that not only was this dentist not an endodontist, but was also NOT board certified.

Really, it was no one’s fault but mine, for not being an educated consumer..

I should have asked whether she was board certified and a specialist before letting her mess with my teeth.

I couldn’t even take legal action, since dentists make you sign 20 non-liability forms BEFORE they see you?

What we as consumers can do is to be aware and educated, about consumer law and medical licensure.. This can save us a whole lot of trouble later.

Let me tell you, medicine related specialty certification in the United States is a voluntary process by the physician or a dentist.

According to ABMS, “While medical licensure sets the minimum competency requirements to diagnose and treat patients, it is not specialty specific. Board certification — and the Gold Star — demonstrate a physician’s exceptional expertise in a particular specialty and/or subspecialty of medical practice.”

To achieve Diplomate status, an endodontist has to show great inner motivation and exceptional commitment to continuing professional growth. A Board-Certified endodontist has to spend thousands of hours working to achieve a high level of expertise, knowledge, experience, pursue more education in endodontics and provide the highest possible quality care to patient.

Had I been an educated and aware consumer, I would have asked the dentist, BEFORE I signed any papers, whether she was a member of the American Board of Endodontics. I did not, and allowed her to give me care that turned out to be a disaster.

If you have any consumer related queries, please contact our team at customerservice@letterchamp.com.