Bad-mouthing – Professional reputation of colleagues

A new trend is emerging where dentists are voicing their opinions and making comments regarding the dental work done by their colleagues without first consulting one another. Even worse, they are occasionally criticising the patient’s prior dentist’s work as “less than perfect work”. With disappointing regularity, practitioners who are faced with their patients being informed by their subsequent dentist who has seen fit to make inappropriate remarks of a disparaging nature about their colleagues’ treatment. Sometimes criticisms are made by clinicians who feel that they have a duty to offer their views on treatment provided elsewhere, whenever a patient seeks their professional opinion and advice.