Dental Negligence - A Double Edged Sword (Part 1)

• Autonomy: Dentist must allow the patients decision on deciding his/her treatment and he has to respect the patient’s vision. It doesn’t mean that patients should over power dentist in their decision making; here the dentist is in a position to explain the patient about their dental health and treatment needs. Dentists are also given the liberty to explain the patients with the newer techniques and procedures available for dental treatment and get the patients consent for his/her dental treatment.
• Sympathy and beneficence: The dentist needs to understand the patient’s condition and he/she needs to attend the patient at the time of emergencies or patients need. Dentist should work for the patient and he/she can refer the patient for higher dentist for patient’s benefits or if he thinks the patient condition is out of his/her way to handle.
• Competence: The dentist needs to be very well aware of his/her abilities and need to be at their best to arrive to a diagnosis and provide suitable dental treatment for the patient. They need to be updated about the newer treatment modalities and newer drug therapies available in dentistry.
• Integrity: Here dentists need to be transparent to the patient thereby explaining the patient about the positives and negatives with the rendered dental treatment. The dentist should act with utmost responsibility and truthfulness by this means showing a desire to help the patient with utmost clarity and ease.
• Justice: The dentist must be impartial when it comes to the treatment needs. Rich, poor, religion or different race and customs, dentist has to provide the best treatment available with affordable cost and serve humanity with integrity and truthfulness.
• Professionalism: In dentistry, professionalism is akin to a character associated with superior competency and skill in handling and treating dental patient with respect, honesty and dedication. Professionalism in dentistry and medical field goes hand in hand.
• Tolerance: Dentist must be aware of patient’s attitude and behavior. He/she needs to act very thoughtfully with different race, religions and ethnicities present in our country and treat them with love and affection.
• Veracity: Truthfulness is the basis of patient- dentist relationship. During any dental procedures, patient relies upon dentist’s honesty on rendering quality treatment and dentist will rely on patient's truthfulness while arriving to a diagnosis.

An absence of reasonable degree of care or skill during any dental procedure which may cause death or a serious injury to any patient amounts to the act of negligence in dental practice. On the other hand, negligence can be an act of charge by the dentist or can be an act of exception. In either way, it cannot be termed as a planned operation with an intention to do harm to either a patient or the dentist.

As medico legal cases against healthcare professionals are on the rise, we will analyze it in depth in Part 2 of this article.

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