Anyone received questions regarding dental ethics during interview?

[jk5177]

I'm prepping for my interviews, and I haven't heard much about questions relating to ethics within the field of dentistry. I imagine there aren't much other than honesty regarding billing. I'm going online to buy this book called "Ethical Questions in Dentistry" to prepare.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? How else can I prepare for possible ethical questions regarding dentistry? What ethical questions have you received? What do you think are the ethical dilemmas which dentist face?

Thanks. I love to hear all your comments and two cents.

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[ItsGavinC]

There are LOTS of ethical situations arising in dentistry, and they go far beyond simple billing problems (although that may be most common).

Billing problems, could be overbilling, or billing for procedures that were never done. Other problems include how to handle patients you recieve who have previous work and it is terrible--do you contact the previous dentist and inform them of their shoddy work? How do you tell the patient that you need to replace a crown when the previous dentist put the crown on only 4 months ago? The patient is going to want to know WHY you must do that, and inevitably you'll have to tell them *something* about the previous dentist's work. Do you tell them that he did poor work?

What about situations of child abuse? Your patient may have bruises that don't coincide with the explanation of how they received them. What about fractured or luxated teeth? The dad says the kid got hit in the mouth with a baseball, but to you it looks like he was punched. How do you handle that?

What about pharmaceutical companies giving you rewards (trips to Hawaii, movie tickets, sports tickets, etc.) for prescribing their drugs or using their materials. You feel composite A is a better material than composite B, but the makers of B will give you tickets to the Super Bowl if you use enough of their product. What do you do?

The list goes on and on.

 

[eran76]

The most common ethically questionable activity I see at the GP I work for is putting expensive work (5+ unit bridges, full mouths, etc.) into the mouths of people who have a life expectancy of less that 3 years, or who are coming back after only a few months to have more extensive work re-done b/c of infection or continued decay.

 

[divertete]

I never answered any ethical questions at my interviews, but at one school a few of the other students there that day were given a detailed hypothetical ethical scenario. They were told that they were professors that had given a test, and fellow professors were pressuring them to give the students lower grades than they had earned because the average was too high. This was the only question they were asked (30-40 min interview). Don't ask me how this was sufficient to evaluate them (!) but just be prepared to answer non-dental ethical questions too.

 

[grinningrice]

I'm prepping for my interviews, and I haven't heard much about questions relating to ethics within the field of dentistry. I imagine there aren't much other than honesty regarding billing. I'm going online to buy this book called "Ethical Questions in Dentistry" to prepare.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? How else can I prepare for possible ethical questions regarding dentistry? What ethical questions have you received? What do you think are the ethical dilemmas which dentist face?

Thanks. I love to hear all your comments and two cents.

Although my interviewer did not ask me about dental ethics, it did come up during the interview. My interviewer asked me what I would hate most about being a dentist. I told him that I would hate presenting a treatment plan that my patient could not afford. I talked about how I would be torn if he really needed the procedure but his insurancewould not cover it.

 

[DREDAY]

There are LOTS of ethical situations arising in dentistry, and they go far beyond simple billing problems (although that may be most common).

Billing problems, could be overbilling, or billing for procedures that were never done. Other problems include how to handle patients you recieve who have previous work and it is terrible--do you contact the previous dentist and inform them of their shoddy work? How do you tell the patient that you need to replace a crown when the previous dentist put the crown on only 4 months ago? The patient is going to want to know WHY you must do that, and inevitably you'll have to tell them *something* about the previous dentist's work. Do you tell them that he did poor work?

What about situations of child abuse? Your patient may have bruises that don't coincide with the explanation of how they received them. What about fractured or luxated teeth? The dad says the kid got hit in the mouth with a baseball, but to you it looks like he was punched. How do you handle that?

What about pharmaceutical companies giving you rewards (trips to Hawaii, movie tickets, sports tickets, etc.) for prescribing their drugs or using their materials. You feel composite A is a better material than composite B, but the makers of B will give you tickets to the Super Bowl if you use enough of their product. What do you do?

The list goes on and on.

hahah damn you know your ish..... nice posts. very stimulating.. you mention many things i had not thought of before. how do you answer those questions though? In the case of the child who was posibly abused for example? how do you handle that.

 

[J2AZ]

How do you address tooth erosion due to possible bulimia without sounding accusatory. It will be interesting to take a dental ethics class inorder to learn how to address all these issues.

 

[amartins02]

Call DSS (Department of Social Services). I have heard of similar stories. Like a boss convincing a friend of mine to do root canals when there is a possibility they don't need it. I will say this, and it comes from observing and hearing situations from my friend, as soon as you start getting greedy your patients pick up on it. Maybe not the money issue itself but, they will notice you might be more pushy or quick to diagnose a problem with an expensive procedure. My friend actually turns away people who come in for work because she ends up rediagnosing the patient (referred by another doctor) and they feel great about it because not only do they not have to sit through a procedure but feel that she is looking out for there best interests.