I really thought that I’d seen it all, at least once, but it turned out that I hadn’t.
On Tuesday 3rd November I opened my first anonymous hate mail letter (I presume from a patient).
As I write this I’m still not quite sure what to think about it, whether to laugh it off or whether to see is as something sinister but it certainly doesn’t frighten me, it just actually saddens me that society has got to this point.
I’m fairly certain I know the individual that has produced this ‘piece of work’ but I could be mistaken although I’m not really (at the present time) keen to go down the route of analysing handwriting which would be possible to do.
In short the communication follows this form:
An A5 envelope with one A4 sheet of paper folded in half inserted.
The address handwritten on the envelope is ‘Mr Colin Campbell, The Clinic, Edwalton Business Park etc etc’. It had a stamp on (and a postmark).
Inside the folded single piece of A4 paper was a photocopy of an article from the Times 2 magazine written by, a presume a journalist, which is one of the worst pieces of journalism that I’ve ever seen.
In effect the journalist was suggesting that a dentist on Harley Street was going to charge him £5,000 to remove a tooth that he’d managed to have removed by another private dentist somewhere else for £400.
The journalist was suggesting, in the article, that the dentist who had extracted the tooth had ‘hacked it into pieces and sucked out the mush’, you see the tone of the article.
The inference in the article was that almost all dentists are money grabbing b@st@rds, who are basically pond scum and not worth stopping your car for if you hit them at a zebra crossing.
Can’t entirely disagree with that in relation to some people in the profession but still hold out the hope that the majority of us are healthcare providers who are better than that.
In the left-hand margin of that piece of paper was written the words “remind you of any dentists?”.
Perhaps this is a compliment asking me to enter a philosophical discussion about the ethical approach, some good and some bad but the fact it was anonymous makes me think that it’s directed at me and suggesting that I am the £5,000 extraction dentist.
So, what to do with this?
Well the answer really is probably nothing (except obviously keep the ‘evidence’ in a safe place).
It’s fascinating though, the narrative that exists with certain individuals.
To have an extraction carried out at The Campbell Clinic which is uncomplicated is £197. That price is on our website.
A complicated extraction can be up to £662 depending upon whether it’s a surgical extraction and how much time is required and that is charged based upon a patient requirement following assessment of the individual case.
To have sedation is more expensive again, to have a CBCT scan to assess it better is more expensive again, to have a panoramic x-ray adds an additional charge because: A) The machine costs an awful lot of money to buy and maintain and B) The x-ray is reported by a clinician who is very well qualified.
Not even in my wildest dreams though could I get a single extraction to £5,000 although if I could that would probably be me done for the week!
The sinister nature of this though is not the ‘allegation’ or the suggestion that I am a money grabbing pond scum but the manner in which it is delivered by a sad individual who is obviously sitting at home ‘gnawing their bones’ and trying to find ways to provide intimidation.
For any of you who’ve ever read this blog consistently in the past (and I wonder if the author of the correspondence does) you’ll know that what I never do is try to chase away darkness with darkness.
Shining light on problems and seeing them clearly would be the only way possible to move forwards and so I only publish this today to shine a light on it.
If you are the individual who authored the correspondence, it would be much better to engage with me directly (and would have been in the past) than to try to beat me with a mallet.
Blog Post Number - 2545
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