Hands down, the most unprofessional and abusive medical experience I've ever had in my entire life,…read morebar none.
This wretched, hole in the wall, battlefield triage clinic of dental butchery is filled with an incompetent gaggle of misandrous shrews.
I went in to have an old filling redone, and the dentist assigned to me was an early 20-something girl apparently fresh out of dental school.
We seemed to get along great for the first couple of visits (mostly cleanings and simple things).
Then next visit was for a filling and as she started drilling, searing pain shot through me and we had to stop. I apologized, explained that I've always had a problem getting numb, but to give me another shot, wait a few minutes and see if I could go on. She did and started drilling again after a few minutes.
Wanting to get the filling done, I tried to endure as much pain as I could, but it was too much and while holding my mouth in agony, tears welling up in my eyes, I apologized again, saying that I was sorry and that I wasn't trying to be a difficult patient or make her job harder, but that I was just in incredible pain.
She then gave me this look of anger and disgust and walked away shaking her head. Her assistant came afterwards to clean up and said I should come back and try another day.
Now, you would think a patient apologizing to her for the pain she was inflicting on them, would prompt her to say something like, "Oh, no need to apologize! It's not your fault. If you're in pain, just let me know so we can try something different."
But no, bizarrely she became livid at me like I did something wrong! The look she gave me was like I had insulted her dead mother while slapping her child! I couldn't figure out what the hell just happened.
Up until then, we had been very friendly but I saw the look in her face and realized that something had changed and that my next visit to that office wasn't going to be pleasant.
But I made a follow up appointment anyway and came back. The 20 something dentist came to the front desk, saw me and dashed off to the back.
I could already imagine the entire drama unfolding back there; the lies/story she'd be telling the head dentist about me.
The walls are low and paper thin, so even though I couldn't make out much of what she was saying, the insistent, urgent tone and almost hysterical edge to her voice was clear. Whatever story she was cooking up back there, it was a whopper.
Immediately, I knew how this was going to go down, but I thought, there was a chance that when the head dentist meets me, she'll see immediately that I'm a totally different person from whatever impression Chicken Little just painted of me to her.
However, I left nothing to chance. I became a human Quaalude - just the most zen, peaceful, calm, mild and pleasant person you could ever hope to meet.
So when Maria Acebo, the head dentists walked into the room instead of the 20 something, I wasn't surprised. I said, "good morning" in a soft, dulcet tone, smiling gently and was absolutely milquetoast. As predicted, Acebo was curt with me; irritated, in a rush, absent minded and I could see that she trying to find something wrong with me or what I said to justify kicking me out.
She went to give me an injection to numb my mouth and I told her about my numbing difficulties, to which she immediately said that I should go to a different dentist that offered general anesthesia.
Stunned at her naked effort to get rid of me, I explained that no insurance covers general anesthesia for non surgical procedures so I'd have to have it done under local. But she knew that already and was just trying to pull a fast one.
She said she'd make an appointment with a specialist for me, and then I heard her on the phone with another dental clinic, actually trying to transfer me over to them as a patient without my consent!
I calmly asked her if that's what she was doing and that's when she finally found something she could use as an excuse to create a fake argument.
While I stood there calmly, she exploded in the most absurd, over the top and psychotic display of melodrama rivaling one of the Real Housewives of New Jersey; yelling at the top of her lungs, putting on a wild show for the 20 something dentist and her staff (as well as the patients in the waiting room) and bellowed at me to get out and that I was no longer a patient there and never to come back.
The final act of her little soap opera was complete and I left there happily, never wanting to set foot in that viper nest again.
Ever since, I've been going to the NYU dental clinic and it's been hands down the best dental experience I've ever had. The students are better dentists than the riff raff employed at Maria Acebo's Tijuana donkey show of a dental practice.
Avoid this emotionally unhinged mercurial quack at all costs.
Your teeth will thank you for it, as will your blood pressure.
