Boston Dental Malpractice Accident Lawyer
By Willy Smite
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Can a dentist or oral surgeon be sued for dental malpractice?
Yes. Dentists and oral surgeons are considered health care professionals and must provide a certain standard of care when providing dental services to a patient. Just like medical doctors, dentists and oral surgeons have a duty to uphold that standard of care in his/her specialty. A breach of this duty, resulting in injury to a patient can result in what is generally referred to as dental malpractice.
Some types of injuries caused by dental malpractice include permanent or temporary nerve and/or structural injuries to the tongue, jaw, chin and lips including lingual nerve injury (tongue), inferior alveolar nerve damage (lips, chin and jaw), numbness, loss of taste sensation and even death. These injuries can be caused by: negligently administered anesthesia or pre-medication, improper removal of impacted wisdom teeth and other negligence in the administration of dental procedures.
Dental malpractice cases are as expensive and difficult to try as medical malpractice cases, so our firm believes a serious permanent injury is needed to justify and merit bringing a dental negligence case. Serious dental injury cases our firm has been involved in include lingual and inferior alveolar nerve injuries and antibiotic or pre-medication errors. As with medical and birth injuries, our firm ends up turning down far more of these cases than we can take. If your dental treatment has been sub-standard our aim is to obtain maximum compensation for you as quickly as possible and only to take cases we feel we can win.
