Bad Dentistry - Part 1

Any time a patient has a dental problem, there's a chance it won't be a boilerplate fix. The tooth—and its restoration—may be compromised as a result of something completely out of the practitioner's hands.

Of course, the ones that get written about are cases in which solutions are within reach but practitioners have let slip through their fingers. Sometimes one poor decision turns a routine restoration into an expensive, time-consuming series of additional procedures and discomfort. I think there were two poor decisions made in my case. Check one for the practitioner and one for me.

This is the story that pretty much dominated my summer.

Part 1—The Overview

I haven't really had many dental issues over the years but I always knew, if I did, my former husband, Rob, a DMD, was there to take care of them. He especially loved the challenging cases; they stirred his passion for dentistry. The more complicated...