Dental Emergency

Question by chewonmyfingers:
Dr Baratz a bad dentist from Norwich, CT or just a strange character?
I called this dentist in emergency need of tooth pain and a easy extraction. Within five minutes of speaking to him on the phone he told me he was calling in a prescription of Vicodin without even seeing me to help with the pain. I could not take it because of the Tylenol in it so he called in a different one.

Upon surgery the Dentist had me go across the street to the Pharmacy and pick up medication to take before the procedure. He wanted me to take 5 Valium and a Pain Killer, which I refused to take all of. After saying how I was not nervous or anxious he said “well take em anyway” and I did not as I do not like to take pills if not needed.

After surgery I complained about more pain I was having days later, and was prescribed a drug called Demerol (a generic form of Morphine). Which was very shocking as many Pharmacists concurred that was not typical for tooth extraction. The Demerol gave me anxiety and made me extremely sick so I flushed it and requested a different pain medication which he did give me.

Days later I still had immense pain and called him again, and was labeled as a “pill addict” then told to see a Neurologist. The Dentist also blocked my calls and purposely admitted to doing so after several attempts at contacting him. The last I spoke with him I requested help with the pain in a non narcotic form if need be, just something to help with the pain I continued to have. He refused claiming I had all ready been on a lot of medication all ready. When I asked for a record of all the medication he prescribed, he refused to give it to me and hung up on me.

A day had passed and my mouth was filled with blood where the tooth was taken out, and the wisdom tooth underneath was bleeding as well. I went to see another Dentist who patched up the hole where the tooth was taken out and took X-Rays which showed my bottom wisdom tooth’s roots were cracked and breaking.

Overall Baratz was extremely unprofessional, and seemed to be very nervous when it came to pharmacies. He crossed the line of trying to make his patient feel comfortable by saying “consider us like drinking buddies, feel free to ask me anything you would like”.

Not to mention the fact that he was on the phone with someone when I showed up and heard him saying “okay, just so we get our stories straight let me write this down just in case”. Also, I had called him right after he supposedly got off the phone with the Government (according to him) and he reacted very nervous and concerned. Too many question marks surround this person, and I would most definitely not advise anyone to see him.

I believe when it comes to the treatment of a patient it is standard to use certain methods of communication to make the patient comfortable. However, there were just too many instances of extreme unprofessionalism that would inspire me to write this very review.

I cannot put my finger on exactly what term to describe him, but I would like to know if anyone else out there concurs with me that he could be unprofessional or just a strange fellow. Also, would anyone think about reporting this case to the A.D.A. or would that be a lost cause?

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