A 23-YEAR-OLD man went to the dentist to have his teeth
straightened, but emerged two teeth short - teeth that should have
been taken out from another patient.
It was a case of a mistake compounded by another mistake at the
National Dental Centre (NDC), in an incident which has landed a
dentist in the soup, and earned the young man free corrective
treatment.
The May 2007 incident - the first such case to come to light
here - began when the clinic clerk put the chit for extracting two
teeth into the wrong patient's file, and the wrong patient was
called into the treatment room.
Dr Debbie Hong Pooi Mun, then four years into her career, failed
to check the identity of her patient before commencing to extract
the teeth. She wrongly took out the upper left first premolar and
lower left second premolar.
The Straits Times understands that the patient was not under
general anaesthesia; however, he said nothing when the first tooth
was taken out.
When the error was discovered, he was informed within the hour.
Although three senior NDC specialists were immediately called in,
attempts to reimplant the two teeth failed.
-- ST