Losing Referral Dentists

The general idea or concept of human well-being, including health and dental care, is originally based on humanity, which is associated with basic ethics of altruism. Personally, I believe that health care system was formulated from the notions such as human rights. In order to protect and maintain the dignity of human, this system was originally integrated with theology, or religion, and was universally accessible to every individuals without any socioeconomic conditions. However, as the framework of society and economics were evolved, the nature of health care system also had been changing. Particularly, under the socioeconomic system of capitalism, monetary aspect of health care system has been emphasizing more and more. Health care workers, …show more content…
In many cases, there would be very high risk for endodontists to provide services for referring general practitioners, not for the patients. Losing referral dentists means you are losing financial profits of the present, and also of the future. When the interests and benefits of patients are conflicting to those of referring dentists, the highest priority should be given to patient’s benefit. This is very clear from the ethical point of view; however, when the ethical standards of referring doctors are far below than ours, we have to negotiate our ethical and moral values with the reality. It is not very uncommon for us to receive a referral form, indicating a very calcified non-negotiable canal. In fact, sometimes we find a broken instrument inside a canal and the patient has not been informed by the general dentist about the situations. When we encounter the less ideal truthfulness of referring doctors, how can we interpret their intentions of reporting as a calcified canal, instead of a separated instrument? Do they expect the same level of truthfulness and ethics on us? Meanwhile, I also hear lots of story regarding the restorability of teeth. For some reason, general practitioners refer a patient with obviously non-restorable tooth, or a severely periodontally involved tooth for the root canal treatment. We surely know the long term prognosis of the tooth is very poor, and ask to referring doctors if they think the tooth is restorable or not. Some of them are willing to listen to our evaluations, however, the others insist to us that they can restore the tooth and expect the long term good prognosis. How can we be truthful to the patient in this kind of situation. In contrast, some dentists recommend an implant placement to the patient who has a symptomatic, but obviously restorable tooth.