TLDR: Dr. Bennett was unprofessional, exploitative, scammy, discriminatory, and did a surgery on my…read moremouth that failed and had to be triaged by a specialist.
As an undergraduate student, I had progressively receding gums on a couple teeth exposing some nerve and causing sensitivity. I didn't have much experience navigating health care, and my attempt to address the problem started with calling a random dentist office (Dr. Bennett's, unfortunately) to ask the receptionist what is the term for the right kind of specialist who I should go see. Rather than saying, "a periodontist, we recommend so-and-so", . The only pre-operation consultation I had was with the younger Dr. Bennett, even though I found out on surgery day that the operation would be by the older Dr. Bennett. To be clear, he booked me for surgery without having ever seen my mouth, and the only pre-surgery evaluation was by a junior practitioner who wasn't qualified or licensed for this surgery. Also on the morning of surgery day, after I had arranged time off work and a ride, they called to say that Dr. Bennett would only see me if I arrived two hours earlier than scheduled because Dr. Bennett wanted to leave early. I should have cancelled and found a different provider, but I didn't know any better and was worried about how much more my gumline had already receded during the wait time for my appointment. Dr. Bennett surgically grafted cadaver tissue, which I later learned from a competent periodontist had no potential to address the issue because it can never replace the correct type of gum tissue that should be tougher and less vascular. Worse, in the week after the surgery, the graft failed and my face got infected and swollen. I of course tried to follow up and called the office, asked for an appointment, asked for a call back-- anything.... one receptionist booked me and then called back to say actually they wouldn't see me. I finally contacted Dr. Bennett through calling the after hours emergency number on the office voicemail. He texted that it's past my bedtime and I should be sleeping. During this period Dr. Bennett also made the dismissive and seemingly sexist comment "I bet your daddy's paying for all this, huh." During this period, I was continuing not to brush the area and following his instructions to only use mouthwash. Probably this was futile, probably the graft was already lost, but who knows, as he did not reexamine it. After a month, I went to an urgent care who told me that I needed to fire Dr. Bennett and find a different dentist, which I did, and that dentist immediately and urgently referred me to a periodontist, who informed me apologetically that I would have to redo the whole surgery. I later was diagnosed by a different provider with 13 cavities, although I had never previously had any, and am suspicious this month-long period of being advised not to brush and no follow-up care may have contributed. Although he was far too busy to help me during the fallout of his failed operation on my mouth, now 14+ years later, the office of Dr. Bennett continues to send me spammy texts hawking infomercials and lagoon ticket lotteries, which has prompted me to finally submit this overdue review. Also, he never refunded me any of the fees I paid in cash for the failed surgery. YOU ARE BETTER OFF GETTING NO DENTAL CARE THAN GOING TO THIS PRACTICE
