It takes a special kind of person to take up a profession that involves putting your fingers inside strangers’ mouths all day. And while most dentists are really good at what they do, the ones in this article may make you want to switch to false teeth.
BOGUS UNIVERSITY
A 2004 investigation in Italy discovered that you can’t count on your dentist’s diploma being real. Officials uncovered a ring of scammers, involving two dental schools in Rome, that sold fake diplomas to dental “students” for as much as $220,000 each. Investigators found evidence of false school-attendance records as well as test answers and term papers provided to students for a fee. Other university staff members were bribed with vacations, gifts, and bonuses to keep them quiet about the scam. Investigators are still trying to locate the dozens of dentists who are practicing without a degree.
In 2004 twenty dentists in California’s Central Valley area were accused of defrauding the state Medi-Cal health system of $4.5 million by performing unnecessary—and cruel—dental work. To lure low-income patients, these dentists went to homeless shelters, shopping malls, and schools and offered gift certificates, sweatshirts, and electric toothbrushes. The patients were then given unnecessary dental work, including root canals. Some dentists were accused of holding crying children down in the dental chair and using straps on elderly patients. Then they charged outlandish amounts of money for the work and sent the bills to Medi-Cal. “In every single one of the 300 files we checked,” said an official, “we found fraud.” In 2008 the two lead dentists in the scam were sentenced to one year in jail and forced to repay $3 million.
On Long Island, New York, a patient (name not released in press reports) showed up for his dentist appointment, but the waiting room was empty. “Is anyone here?” he asked. No one answered, so the man walked into the back, where he found the dentist, Norman Rubin, lying on the floor. According to police, “He was unresponsive and drooling, and had the gas mask on his face.” Rubin was later charged with “inhalation of hazardous inhalants.” He blamed the incident on a migraine, but admitted, “It was a mistake.” An investigation found that his license had been suspended several times, which he blamed on “six disgruntled patients.”
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Donna Delgado of Tampa, Florida, had dental surgery in 2008. In the weeks and months afterward, she suffered from frequent nosebleeds and sinus infections. A year later, Delgado was still in pain, so she went to another dentist…who discovered that a one-inch steel dental tool had been left inside her right maxillary sinus. It was removed, and Delgado’s symptoms disappeared (although she may have nickel poisoning). A lawsuit is pending.
In June 2004, Dr. Colin McKay of Halton, England, drank six glasses of wine at lunch and then performed a tooth extraction on Andrea Harrison. It didn’t go well. It took McKay two tries to inject the anesthetic into her gums, then he started the procedure before Harrison’s mouth became completely numb. “I was in a lot of pain and yelled, but he carried on,” she said. “Then he seemed to fall over me. I ended up running out.” Another dentist finished the extraction; McKay was found guilty of professional misconduct.
“Dr. Allena Burge pulled teeth so hard and fast, the patients’ blood would spray,” her assistant, Janet Popelier, told investigators. “Sometimes parts of the jawbone or mandible would break.” Why did the Florida dentist have to work so fast? “She was trying to make $12,000 a day from Medicaid. I saw many half-conscious, bleeding patients led out the back door soon after their surgeries to make room for new patients.” Burge was charged with fraud and malpractice. (She even let her 12-year-old son administer anesthesia.) In just four years, she filed more than 57,000 Medicaid claims totaling $6.6 million. No word on the investigation’s outcome, but at last report, Burge was still practicing dentistry.
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