Case studies

Faulty equipment
Contaminated bracket

4 December 2013

A member's experience of dealing with a serious breach of infection control involving a previously used bracket.

duty of candour
Coming clean

1 August 2012

Breaking the law can cause long term issues!

Good record keeping
Effective records

1 August 2012

An elderly patient of many years’ standing at the practice attended as an emergency with an infection

Image problems

1 August 2012

Student caught breaking the rules by taking pictures!

Reasonable to extract

1 August 2012

Patient leaving it years to see dentist

Complex cleft palate

22 December 2010

This case concerns a female patient with an extremely complex dental history. She had been born with a cleft lip and palate, and had undergone cleft lip repair within her first year, and cleft palate repair by bone graft to the upper alveolus at age 11.

Severe post-extraction infection

22 December 2010

A male patient in his 40s underwent the extraction of LL5, LL7 and LL8, but suffered a severe post-extraction infection, resulting in the need for emergency drainage under general anaesthesia at hospital.

The lost post

22 December 2010

In the mid-1990s a general dental practitioner member examined a male patient with a heavily restored dentition. The patient had porcelain jacket crowns on both upper central incisor teeth. Radiographs taken three years later showed these teeth to have been restored using tapered cast posts supporting the overlying crowns.

A colleague causes concerns

21 December 2010

A dentist had concerns that a colleague’s clinical performance was becoming increasingly inconsistent.

A witness to fact

21 December 2010

A dentist received a request from the police to provide them with a report on a teenage girl’s dental condition. The member had seen the girl as an emergency appointment at the practice a few weeks earlier, after she had reportedly been involved in a fight after school.