Dentists hold that the types of mistakes discussed in the report are rare in dentistry.
While there are isolated incidents of injury due to dentist error, few dental office mishaps result in death or serious harm. The Data Bank, designed to collect information on unprofessional behavior, malpractice payments and disciplinary action and other licensure information by state boards, has been in the news recently as a number of forces push to open its records to the public. Myron Bromberg, DDS, chair of the Academy's Council on Legislative and Governmental Affairs, says he has serious concerns about any plans for new reporting systems. Dentists were given repeated promises that the information contained within the Data Bank would never become public. The new reporting system will be redundant and open doctors up to even greater risk of damaging information being released to patients, says Dr. Mayher.