Action | Amendment to restriction on advertising dental specialties |
Stage | NOIRA |
Comment Period | Ended on 9/5/2018 |
Informed consent is one of the most important steps in initiating treatment with a patient. It involves an honest, clear, and documented discussion between clinician and patient. It is both an ethical and a legal matter that can protect the patient from making a decision on a matter in which they are unfamiliar or uneducated. What message are we sending the public when we allow dentists to advertise as a specialist without disclosing that they are not a specialist, but instead a general dentist that has limited their practice to a specialty? This is at its best misleading, and at its worst dangerous to the public. If we are required to inform the patients about their procedures to protect them, then shouldn't we also be ensuring that they are not misled in advertising?