Primary Location
Amenities
Planning
Accepts new patientsAppointments recommended
Accessibility
Wheelchair accessible restroom
Amenities
Restroom
I want to share with those considering 19th Avenue Dental Excellence a letter I received from Dr. Kiisk, the owner of the clinic because I think it shows who he is. I went to his clinic twice for teeth cleaning - first in 2018 and second in 2019. In both visits, the clinic offered treatments for my dental conditions involving cavity but I did not accept; I received cavity treatment from my previous dentist in 2007. Unfortunately, the procedure caused complications in a week, resulting in loss of a tooth. Since I had not had symptoms at all before receiving the treatment (the x-ray results were the only evidence of the cavity) but the treatment resulted in tooth ache and loss of a tooth, I wanted to wait this time.
Instead of trying to persuade the patient, however, Dr. Kiisk simply discharged me from his clinic by sending a letter. I was totally blindsided when I received his letter. In both of my visits to his clinic, I have never met him as he said, "Your records indicate" in the letter; my teeth cleaning was done by dental hygienists. Without directly seeing a patient, I am not sure how one can talk about doctor-patient relationship, which he mentioned in the letter.
I am a health care professional seeing patients and teaching at a university. If we have patients who do not follow our treatments, it is our job to help them follow the treatment by working closely with them. This is also what we teach our students both in classroom and in clinic. If a doctor abandons patients who are not receiving the treatment he or she believes necessary, can this doctor be really called a doctor?
If this is the type of care you are looking for, I still have one more to share with you. In both visits, I was offered an oral cancer screening test. However, I had to decline it because they did not know the basic information on the test; when I asked what sensitivity (true positiveness) and specificity (true negativeness) of the test was, they did not seem to know even the concept of these basic measures of a test.
