r/DentistryIndia

Visited Ahmedabad civil hospital few months ago for braces but the intern there said they've to do surgery for filling the gap in my teeths, braces alone won't help. Cannot trust government hospitals for surgeries and does anyone here know who has done sort of surgeries on them or knows any experienced dentists

Yes. I want to know how it’ll benefit the general dentist and other specialists. you are welcome criticise the idea of this. I want to know the community opinion before as many says it’s not profitable.

Not a dentist, I'm ortho, but I read consumer judgments for work. This one came out of Punjab SCDRC last week and I haven't stopped thinking about it.

NRI patient, lives in UK, comes to Jalandhar to get his old bridge replaced. Quote is 97k for 3 implants plus a crown repair. He says too much, asks for cheaper. Dentist drops it to 2 implants, 64k. Patient signs a consent form saying he won't claim anything if it fails, pays, flies home.

Three months later the bridge is loose. He flies back. Redone free. That one cracks in the middle after five months. Flies back again. Dentist tries a different design, one end on the implant, other end cemented to a natural tooth. Snaps in two.

Then covid hits and he can't travel. He gives up, gets a denture made in UK for £500, files a complaint. District forum orders the full 64k back plus 15k. Dentist appeals.

And in appeal he makes a good argument. The implants were fine. They integrated, held for years, carried a PFM bridge, can't come out without surgery. What kept failing was the prosthesis on top. So charge me for the bridge, not the surgery.

Commission asks him what the bridge cost.

Nothing in the record. The bill showed charges against "dental implant" and that's it. No separate figure for the prosthetic work, nothing showing where one ended and the other began. No split on paper means no split in law. Full refund.

Eight and a half years from first appointment to final order.

Two things I want your take on:

The consent form never appears in the judgment. Not once. He pleaded it and the bench just doesn't engage. If you're relying on a no-refund-on-failure clause, that should worry you.

And the clinical bit, since I don't do this work. 4 unit bridge on 2 implants, one of them reportedly in the middle and later removed. Doomed or defensible? Because nobody in the case ever asked. There's zero expert evidence in the file. A dental negligence case got decided without a single dentist giving evidence.

Takeaway: Surgical phase and prosthetic phase as separate lines with separate amounts. Costs you nothing at billing time and it's the one thing that would have saved him here.

I am a 4th year student from a private dental college and I think I could really benefit from assisting at a dental clinic or even just doing an observership.

We usually don't get a lot of patients in my college and I fear I might graduate without feeling confident in my skills. I want to learn as much as I can and I cant think of a way to go about it.

Do you have any tips to master basic clinical skills? I don't know how to approach clinics for the same.