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.
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.
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.
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