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Review content:
During a cleaning, the dentist dropped an instrument on the floor and used his gloves to pick it up. Since his gloves had touched the floor, they were no longer sterile. However, he did not change his gloves. He used these gloves to remove the plastic packaging from the instrument (thus contaminating it). He put the contaminated instrument in my mouth.\r
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I complained, but he brushed off my concerns. He said that because the instrument had been covered in plastic, I had nothing to worry about. He ignored the fact that using contaminated gloves to remove the instrument from the packaging caused the instrument to be come contaminated.\r
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He continued using the contaminated instrument in my mouth. Furthermore, he held my mouth open and touched my teeth and gums with contaminated gloves. To make matters even worse, since my gums were bleeding (due to the cleaning), the germs on the floor could enter my bloodstream directly.\r
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I'm not germophobic, but infection is a real threat (even to those with healthy immune systems). This dentist took shortcuts that endangered my health and well-being. He made the decision to not take a few extra seconds to put on clean gloves and retrieve another clean instrument. Shortcuts do not belong in dentistry.\r
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Some other issues:\r
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1) Even though my appointment was set for 9 AM (the earliest possible time) on a Wednesday (a day which is not busy), I still had to wait 45 minutes before the dentist saw me.\r
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2) Although I had scheduled an appointment for a complete checkup and cleaning, the dentist decided to divide my cleaning into 2 sessions - meaning I had to come back on another day for the rest of the cleaning. This required me to take more time away from work, make another drive to the place, and spend more time in the waiting room. (The dentist dropped the instrument on the floor during the second session.)\r
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3) Each room has a small television that plays movies (the kind you see in a theater, not dental hygiene videos), and they'll often play these movies even if you don't ask them to. During my cleaning, the dentist and his assistant were making comments to each other about the movie. It was clear that they were partially distracted by the movie and were not 100% focused on me. This is not what I want when someone is poking around my mouth with sharp instruments.\r
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4) During my checkup/cleaning, this dentist poked me twice on the lip with an instrument. In dental school, students receive extensive training in manual dexterity and work on developing precise hand-eye coordination (to within fractions of a millimeter). My lip is a lot further than a fraction of millimeter away from my teeth. These accidental pokes cause me to fear that this dentist is more clumsy and less precise than other dentists. I would not be comfortable with this dentist performing more complex procedures on my teeth and gums.\r
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5) I checked my insurance statement a few weeks after the cleaning and found that the dentist had called the second session a ""deep"" cleaning. Calling it a ""deep"" cleaning allowed the dentist to charge and collect much more money. When the dentist made the decision to split my cleaning into 2 sessions, the dental office did not tell me that the second session was not part of a regular cleaning. Nor did they tell me that it would not be fully covered by insurance. The office should have told me about the financial costs of the second cleaning session, but they did not. Consequently, I could not make an informed decision on whether to proceed with a second cleaning session.\r
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In retrospect, I don't think I even needed the deep cleaning. I saw my previous dentist regularly for checkups and cleanings, and the last cleaning (before I visited this dentist) was performed less than five months ago.\r
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I strongly advise you to avoid this dentist.
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