"Dentist pulls out wrong person's teeth"

This article is basically about a dentist, Dr Debbie Hong, who was fined $3000 by a dental council after failing to check the identity of a patient and hence wrongly pulling out 2 of the patient's teeth.

A 23 year old male patient went to have his teeth straightened at Dr Debbie's clinic, but ended up 2 teeth short. This was becausethe clinic clerk put the chit for extracting two teeth into the wrong patient's file, and hence the wrong patient was called into the treatment room. Dr Debbie Hong "failed to check the identity of the patient before commencing the extract the teeth. She wrongly took out the upper left first premolar and lower second left premolar." According to the Straits Times article, the patient was not under general anaesthesia, but said nothing went the first tooth was pulled out. When the error was discovered, the man was called back within the hour. Although 3 senior specialists from NDC were called in immediately, they were unable to reimplant the two teeth. Hence, the patient filed a complaint against Dr Debbie Hong to the Singapore Dental Council.

This is a very severe mistake which has been made, by standards, by quite an experienced dentist. According to the article, this dentist has been in the trade for 4 years already. Hence, she should already be used to checking the identity of patients and hence should not make such a mistake. Furthermore, her careless actions has also caused permanent harm to the man. This was because the man was still in his youth, only 23 years old, but yet had already lost the use of two of his molars. How can this loss be repaid to him? What is more, the patient was also not under anaesthesia. A molar is a large tooth situated at the back of the mouth and secured by lots of roots. Most likely, it was also an adult molar. Imagine the agony the man must be going through without general anaesthesia. This was great carelessness and irresponsibility on the part of the dentist. A $3000 fine is much too little.