A woman who visited one of South Carolina’s oldest and busiest high-volume denture clinics had 13 upper teeth extracted by mistake, she alleges in a lawsuit.
The woman, 25-year-old Elizabeth Smith of Sumter, agreed to have three teeth pulled and a partial upper denture installed as treatment for a chipped upper tooth, her suit says.
But the dentist who did the 2006 procedure at Sexton Dental Clinic in Florence mistakenly took out 16 upper teeth — all she had up top, her suit alleges.
A human mouth has 32 permanent teeth — 16 on top and 16 on the bottom.
The Sexton Dental Clinic denies any wrongdoing.
Lawsuits alleging slipshod work by dentists are infrequent.
As a result, dentists have lower malpractice insurance rates than many other doctors, said Phil Latham, executive director of the S.C. Dental Association.
THE CASE
Smith’s procedure took place after a clinic dentist recommended 10 of her teeth be removed, Sexton said in its reply to the complaint, filed in the Florence County courthouse.
Smith “voluntarily assumed the risk of having certain teeth removed after having … agreed to undertake the course of treatment recommended,” the clinic said.
Accompanying Smith’s lawsuit is an affidavit by dentist Dr. Greg Bottone, who said he had examined Smith’s mouth and looked at her records. She did not need all her teeth pulled, Bottone said.
“It is a breach of the standard of care for a dentist to pull a patient’s teeth without their consent,” Bottone said in his affidavit.
Bottone estimated it would cost $37,500 to $46,500 to surgically put in implants to fix Smith’s condition as much as possible.
Smith’s lawsuit also alleges the Sexton Dental Clinic “fabricated entries in the plaintiff’s dental chart” to “fraudulently cover up, hide and defend their wrongful conduct.”
The clinic denied that allegation in its reply. In describing what happened, the clinic said one dentist examined Smith’s mouth and recommended extractions, then another dentist removed her teeth.
“I’m very much looking forward to putting what happened to her in front of a Florence County jury,” said Robert Ransom of Columbia, Smith’s lawyer.
Records at the Florence County courthouse say an attempt last year to mediate a settlement failed.
“Since 1923, Sexton Dental Clinic has provided to the Florence community — and beyond — quality and affordable dental care,” said Mike Nunn, a lawyer for the clinic and its doctors.
“We are ethically prohibited from further comment on this case at this time beyond that which is contained in our court filings.”
THE PRACTICE
The two-story, gleaming white 24,000-square-foot clinic in downtown Florence has eight dentists and 89 other employees, said Steve Turner, Sexton’s operations manager.
It has 36 examination rooms and labs where dentures are produced.
The clinic handles up to 300 patients a day, including about 120 denture patients. Most denture patients are from out of state, Turner said.
Many patients arrive before dawn to get in line.
At 6 a.m. on a weekday last month, 25 patients sat in the clinic’s brightly lit lobby, waiting their turn.
“This is not busy, honey,” the receptionist said.
By 9 a.m., dentists already had started removing teeth.
Shortly before 10 a.m., 45-year-old Kathy Calderon of Atlanta sat in a car in the parking lot in front of the clinic.
She had just had all her upper and lower teeth pulled. A wad of blood-soaked gauze protruded from her toothless mouth.
“I feel fine,” she said through the gauze, adding medication was keeping the pain at bay.
Later that day, she said, she would be fitted with temporary dentures. In a year, she would come back and get permanent ones installed.
Calderon said she needed to have her teeth pulled because she injured them in an accident years ago. They gave her difficulty and pain.
She came to Sexton because it was “the cheapest place,” and a good friend had been highly satisfied with the job it did removing her teeth and installing dentures.
Sexton is charging her $1,550, including the cost of the permanent dentures, she said.
In Atlanta, to do what Sexton is doing would cost her $6,000, Calderon said.
To arrive at Florence at 6 a.m., she and her father, who would drive her back, left Atlanta at midnight.
‘A COTTAGE INDUSTRY’
High-volume clinics like Sexton’s with numerous dentists are rare in South Carolina, the Dental Association’s Latham said.
“This is still pretty much what you would call a cottage industry,” Latham said.
The late Dr. C.L. Sexton, who founded the clinic, was trying to bring low-cost dental care to poor people who couldn’t afford treatment, said operations manager Turner.
Sexton Dental Clinic pulls thousands of teeth each year.
In her lawsuit, Smith says she has suffered “pain, mental anguish, psychological trauma, disfigurement … embarrassment and humiliation” as a result of the teeth-pulling.
“We strive to give patients the best possible care,“ said Turner, who would not comment on the lawsuit.
No trial date has been set.