Death in Dentistry

I've experienced one patient death in 13 years. Wow, this unlocked an awful memory. Storytime...

I was temping at an office and maybe two years out of hygiene school. A female patient in her late 40s had a brain tumor but didn't record it in her medical history, so none of us knew she was sick.

I had seen her the day before for an SRP and she was there to do the other side. She walked as far as the check-in counter but had a massive seizure and fell against the door leading to the clinic, so we couldn't get to her. Everyone was standing around looking braindead except for the front desk girl, who was shrieking incoherently. Apparently, I was the only one with two brain cells to rub together, so I ran around the entire building to get to the patient from the front entrance to the lobby. I squeezed in behind her to move her head off the clinic door, but she was too heavy and contorted for me to lay her down in the recovery position. I yelled at everyone to run around the building and help me. I was shocked I had to even say such a thing.

After what seemed like hours, the lead assistant and the dentist finally sauntered in to lend their laughable expertise (the assholes weren't even out of breath, and it was a huge building). The lead assistant, who earlier had given me shit for only getting my CPR certification done every other year because "At ThEiR oFfIcE, they do it eVeRy YeAr so aren't we so much better" (cough*blow me*cough), PROCEEDS TO ASK AN UNCONSCIOUS PATIENT IF THEY WANT SOME FUCKING WATER!!! Seizure 101: don't put ANYTHING in the patient's mouth because they'll aspirate and die. I yelled at the assistant, called her an idiot, and told her no, we would not be giving her any water and to stop asking this woman if she was ok because she was obviously not ok. I yelled at the wailing receptionist, who still hadn't moved from behind the desk, to shut the fuck up and call 911 and gave her the patient's stats. And I yelled at the dentist, who was just staring at my 115lbs skinny ass holding a 200+lb patient, to wake the hell up and help me place her on her side.

Once everyone was moving with a greater sense of urgency, EMS was on their way and the patient was put in a safer position that didn't involve her entire dead weight on me. EMS showed up a few minutes later and took her away. The dentist went to talk to the EMS guys like he'd saved the day.

I don't remember how much time passed, but it felt like a year. My brain literally shut down for a bit and that part of my memory has since yeeted itself out of my head.

After I stepped out of my brain befuddlement, the doctor came back into the office and started blabbing on about something or other, but I couldn't hear, and I couldn't speak. I just gave him a dirty look, walked past him, slumped at a computer in the back, wrote up my note as thoroughly as I could remember, wrote a duplicate on the back of a patient router (in case they tried to change my notes which pointed out their many failings), packed my shit, and left for the day. Yes, they tried to get me to stay and work the rest of the day. Yes, it took all my energy not to tell them to go fuck themselves. Yes, I called my mom and cried.

The assistant called me a few weeks later and told me about the brain tumor and that she had died later in the hospital. She even tried to subtly blame me because I had done her SRP, which she seemed to think contributed to a brain tumor that must have existed for many months or years. The attitude of this woman was astounding. The patient's sister had angrily called the office and was trying to blame the dentist for her death, but her brain tumor was never recorded in her medical history, and neither we nor her sister had any knowledge that she was dying. It's a hell of a way to find out your sister had been lying for months or years about a fatal medical condition...

I never found out whether the sister took the dentist to court or not, but I was never called as a witness, so I assume not.

I never went back to that office. I refused to work with a bunch of ignorant, incompetent boobs. I hated that office. Ugh, that was a rough day. Poor woman. RIP