1. would you rather work in an area where dental experience and renumeration is excellent OR lifestyle is good
-Definitely lifestyle...It's useless to have pockets full of money if you're miserable because you're in a city you don't like, and your friends, family and hobbies are far away.
2. define immediate treatment
-Anything required to take the patient out of pain or stop something from getting worse. For me, this realistically varies depending on how much time I have in my schedule, and what the patient needs. Usually it's either a prescription for an antibiotic/pain med, pulptomy, or exo, but can sometimes be a filling or repair or smoothing of a broken filling.
3 define defferable treatment
-Anything that can be done later, because the patient is not in pain or the situation is not going to get worse, like repairing a broken filling without recurrent decay, or putting a crown on a tooth that you just restored with a large amalgam because the patient can't afford prosth treatment at this time.
4 define option al treatment
-Something that is of little benefit to the patient's overall oral health--Or conversely, something that not doing will not have an adverse outcome on the patient's current oral health.
5. under what circumstances would you refuse to offer treatment to a patient
-When I question their ability to give me informed consent--Like an older person with dementia whose caregiver isn't present, or someone who seems "on the fence" about major treatment decisions but appears to make a snap decision on the spot because they want immediate treatment. Or someone who seems to be very uncomfortable with the informed consent discussion of risks and benefits, but agrees anyways.
-Or on the other hand, if I believe that treating the patient will pose a risk to me or the patient, then I'll refer. I'm talking mainly about pedo patients who fight, or adult patients who tell me they have a history of punching their dentists, in which cases they'd be better off with sedation.
6 should dentists be able to charge according to what they feel their service is worth
-No, fees should be standardized by the dental societies to avoid unfair price wars and to prevent dentists from gouging patients. In theory all general dentists have the same degree and passed the same board exams and are regulated by the same governing body. The dental associations should be able to determine what their members' services are worth.
7 what role do you believe health funds play in dentistry
-I'm in Canada, so my answer to this may not be applicable to the US.
