My wife and I had relocated to the Dallas area and were in search of a dentist when we found Olivia Santillan with Northeast Dallas Dentistry. At the beginning everything seemed good...everyone on the team was nice and we thought we had found a decent place to manage our dental needs. NOT SO FAST. WOWSERS. What we quickly came to realize was the inept and frankly careless dental qualities of both Santillan...and even more so the endodontist this location utilizes. Consequently, as I came to have a concern that my dental health, if not my overall health, could be compromised by continuing with this dentist, both my wife and I have left this dental office for a more competent situation. Further, I am still in the investigative stage of getting opinions by other dental professionals to determine if I will need to pursue any reconciliatory accommodation. Hopefully, a legal recourse won't be necessary. Why all this you may ask?
As I had shared with Dr. Santillan in the beginning, I come from a large extended family that includes more than 10 doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, dentists and hospital administrator executives. Thus, one comes to even better understand the dynamics of good versus bad as it relates to medical and/or dental skillsets, especially, over a lifetime of experience. During my last with Dr. Santillan she was numbing my gum area in preparation for adding a filling to a damaged tooth. During this process Santillan penetrated so deep with the needle that she literally pierced into my sinus cavity...which then shot procaine up through my sinus channel, into my nasal passages and then it started to run down the top of my throat. It truly was a bit frightening as the top of my throat area started to numb up and I started to feel like I couldn't swallow...or if I could I couldn't feel myself do it as it had numbed up. I jumped up out of my chair and told Santillan I needed to go to the restroom, as admittedly, it was kind of scary to say the least! CARELESSNESS AT BEST. MALPRACTICE AT WORST.
Further, when getting a root canal with their endodontist, at the same office, even though I was numbed up for the procedure, at one point when he was doing something with a tool, I felt a something bump hard up against my upper gum on the inside. Immediately the endodontist said, "sorry about that". He obviously had slipped with this tool, slammed into the side of my upper gum and literally turned a small part of the gum area into a surface resembling shredded meat. I am NOT exaggerating...NO hyperbole here. Not only do I have the obvious proof that still exist in my mouth today, but I can feel it every moment of every day when my tongue brushes up against the ragged gum area that the endodontist compromised. CARELESSNESS AT BEST. MALPRACTICE AT WORST.
In my last visit with Olivia Santillan, after she had compromised my sinus cavity with procaine, she knew very well of the bad experience she put me through, and knowing I'm from a medical family just casually said, "if you find anything out (with regard to the penetrating of my sinus cavity) to please let me know". In other words, she was either clueless this mistake could happen...(Google it...others have had similar bad experiences) or she was trying to act like it was really nothing and was playing dumb. Regardless, through it all, I was very kind to her and to her entire team, both before and after this bad experience. I even responded by telling her if I received any feedback or got any additional info for what had happened that I would let her know. So, guess what? As she and I had been connected on LinkedIn for a long while and as I was trying to be nice and reach out to her confidentially, so as to not embarrass her before her team, I sent her a message with what I had learned up to that point, as she had requested. Guess what she did? Her response was no response and she blocked me on LinkedIn! At first I was shocked but then realized...hey, this is a young immature dentist who is really, really bad at her craft, who knew she had screwed up and just wanted to run and hide. I even told her in that message that all was good and to please just learn from this experience and get better as we all make mistakes along this journey called life. At that point I assumed my gum would heal back up over time. It hasn't...now I'm wondering if a skin graft or something will be required. My wife, who is a nurse manager/director of 40 years summed it up well when she said, "Olivia Santillan is young and how she blocked me and handled the overall situation was a rookie mistake". Not only was she incredibly unprofessional via her expertise in the field of dentistry, but she also was very unprofessional in her customer service and overall conflict management skills.
Want a dentist that I believe could potentially threaten both your dental and overall health? Northeast Dallas Dentistry is the place for you. You've been warned.
Mark Welch
President
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