West Chester, PA Dental Malpractice Lawyers

Dental anxiety is incredibly common, and when patients suffer dental malpractice, the trauma is often enough to keep them from ever seeking dental care again. When you entrust your smile, your ability to eat, and the integrity of your mouth to a dentist, you deserve to know that they are giving you the best care possible. When they fall short of that standard, you may be entitled to compensation for dental malpractice.

If you or someone you love has suffered injuries due to dental malpractice in West Chester, we’re here to support you during this difficult time. Call Kingbird Legal at 484-289-4880 to set up a consultation now.

Do You Have a Case?

Any type of medical malpractice claim, which includes dental malpractice cases, is going to be very nuanced and complex. A big part of your claim is determining whether or not malpractice actually happened. While many people believe that any negative health outcome can be malpractice, this isn’t the case. Specific requirements must be met for a victim to have a dental malpractice case.

First, it’s important to look at the dental professional’s acceptable standard of care. Every area of medical practice has set standards for care, including how and when to administer anesthesia, how to respond when something goes wrong, and how to act given a certain set of facts. When a dentist’s treatment choices go far outside what you would expect a similarly trained dentist to do, they may have breached the standard of care for their profession.

Second, you also have to determine whether or not that dentist’s breach of standard of care caused you or your loved one to suffer significant harm. In some cases, a dentist may breach the standard of care, but nothing bad happens because of it. This is still gross negligence, but it isn’t necessarily a legal matter. In that case, it’s something you would report to the Pennsylvania State Board of Dentistry so they can take appropriate action. However, if you don’t have damages, you likely don’t have a lawsuit.

Common Types of Dental Malpractice

There are numerous ways a West Chester dentist can stray so far from the standard of care that they cause patients avoidable harm. Common forms of dental malpractice include:

• Inappropriately administered anesthesia

• Injuries to facial nerves

• Incorrect diagnosis or missed diagnosis

• Incorrect treatment for a given diagnosis

• Failure to provide the patient with informed consent

• Improper tool usage or sterilization

• Operating without verifying that they are working on the correct tooth or part of the mouth

Long-Term Effects of Dental Malpractice

Different types of dental malpractice can have a wide range of long-term consequences for your health and well-being. For example, inappropriately administered anesthesia may result in lidocaine toxicity, serious cardiovascular effects, damage to the vascular system, and death. 

In some situations, anesthesia errors can result in brain injuries. Brain injuries can be devastating for patients and their loved ones, resulting in loss of consciousness, chronic pain and headaches, difficulty speaking, loss of memory, personality changes, and loss of mobility and skills.

Injuries to the facial nerves can permanently limit an individual’s ability to control the nerve in question, affecting how they speak, how they eat, and their facial expressions. Nerve damage is notoriously difficult to repair, and even with immediate action, a full recovery is unlikely.

Incorrect and missed diagnoses are some of the most common sources of malpractice, both in dentistry and across the field of medicine as a whole. Dentists have a wide range of tools at their disposal to help them make timely and accurate diagnoses. When they fail to do so, patients may be subjected to inaccurate and unnecessary treatments. 

At best, these treatments have no benefit or harm; at worst, these treatments actively cause pain and discomfort to patients. These mistakes also delay a patient’s ability to receive appropriate treatment and may give their condition time to worsen. When a condition is left to linger, it often takes longer to treat, results in more pain for the patient and leads to a longer recovery time.

Inappropriate tool usage and sterilization can be fatal for patients. The mouth is extremely susceptible to infection, and improperly cleaned and sterilized tools are a breeding ground for dangerous bacteria. Dentists and other dental professionals who fail to care for tools can introduce bacteria to a patient’s mouth, resulting in infections that can quickly spread through the body and lead to death.

Finally, operating on the wrong tooth or side of the mouth is an easily avoidable mistake that can result in patients losing teeth unnecessarily and having to undergo multiple rounds of anesthesia and surgical treatment. These encounters can also cause patients significant mental trauma and anxiety, making it harder for them to seek dental care in the future.

How Kingbird Legal Can Help You

At Kingbird Legal, we understand how dental malpractice can leave you physically hurt, mentally traumatized, and unsure of what to do next. You trust your medical providers and their training—and when they fail to live up to our expectations, we are left struggling to pick up the pieces.

Damages for dental malpractice claims can easily reach hundreds of thousands of dollars, particularly if you are left with permanent nerve damage, brain injuries, avoidable loss of teeth, and other losses that cannot ever be fully repaired. We’re here to help you fight for what you deserve. We understand the complexities of dental malpractice and we know what it takes to help our clients seek justice.

You have a lot of work to do during your recovery—don’t let your legal needs add even more to your to-do list. Trust us to handle your malpractice claim while you focus on your recovery.

Explore Your Legal Options by Contacting Us Today

The sooner you begin working with Kingbird Legal after a dental injury, the sooner we can begin working on your claim. Set up your free consultation now by calling us at 484-289-4880 or sending us a quick message online. We’ll get in touch right away to learn more about your case.