I have a certain fondness for dentists behaving badly. The illustration, stolen from Barista (a beautiful blog from Melbourne), is of a dental oxygen enema. I understand that a Melbourne dentist was given a holiday for the rest of his life after losing his quixotic battle with the dentists’ Bureau de Spank (see its recent decisions here) to have his anal oxygen therapy recognised. Apparently he was a lovely man. I didn’t know that his quix had a one-time respectable historical pedigree.
Then there was the recent boar tusk incident which turned into a relatively interesting indemnity dispute with Dr Woo’s professional indemnity insurers. His assistant cared for pot-bellied pigs, including her pet, Walter. Dr Woo told her, as part of what he described as a ‘friendly working environment’ how much he would like to roast Walter, brought back photos of slaughtered boars from his hunting trip, and then, while she was sedated for a procedure he was to do on her, slipped some boars’ tusks into her mouth, took photos, and distributed them around the consulting rooms. He paid her a quarter of a million greenbacks in a settlement, but after a fight with the insurer, got indemnified, and collected a cool three quarters of a million bucks in damages.
And most recently comes the story of the Californian dentist who is seeking to avoid a very long holiday from dentistry by arguing for the legitimacy of pectoral massage for temporo-mandibular joint disorder. Especially of female patients: one 31 year old woman, massaged 6 times in 3 years, took to wearing tight shirts with high necklines, “and Anderson would still get in under her shirt and bra,” according to a police report. Also here, where the smiling dentist’s photograph is featured.
