from Hacker News

A dentist broke his patients’ teeth on purpose so he could fix them

by caaqil on 3/16/22, 9:48 PM with 10 comments

  • by WheelsAtLarge on 3/17/22, 12:06 AM

    I think dentistry should be part of the general medical system instead of being its own realm. It has better checks and balances and there would be less incentive to harm patients for profit.

    The current dentistry system makes it easy to do things that are against the patients well being. Many Dentists have a solo practice where they need to generate income to keep the doors open so they lean towards work that is profitable for them. I'm sure there are many dentists that do their best to minimize having to work on a patient but I'm sure that there many that have no problem trying to get the most money out of a patient.

    I'm surprised there hasn't been a push towards creating a specialty like Doctor of Dental Medicine in medical schools. A guess there's no incentive to do it.

  • by cato_the_elder on 3/16/22, 10:16 PM

    Dentistry is full of shameless shams. That is part of the reason it (along with Chiropractic) is not often covered by universal healthcare insurance systems. The exceptions are limited, about 12 countries at most [1].

    [1]: https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Depart...

  • by nonrandomstring on 3/16/22, 10:28 PM

    I have made the argument on many occasions that the "security industry" is absolutely rife with iatrogenics [1] and factitious disorder by proxy [2].

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iatrogenesis

    [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factitious_disorder

  • by toothpicked on 3/16/22, 9:59 PM

    Doesn't surprise me... We need a cleanup in the dental industry.

  • by tpmx on 3/16/22, 9:58 PM

    One dentist bringing in $1.4 million per year, before he started the fraud/malpractise?

    Sure, that probably includes paying two other people (one admin, one dental nurse), but still?

  • by haspoken on 3/16/22, 10:34 PM

  • by tamaharbor on 3/17/22, 1:22 AM

    The car repair industry has been doing something similar for many years.