Dentists

For a quarter-century, Dr. Terry Vines built his Redlands dental practice the old-fashioned way: one mouth at a time. Vines sponsored youth soccer teams. He renovated historic buildings around town to build good will. He turned his waiting room into a cozy nook with soft chairs and a big-screen TV. As business increased, Vines hired more dentists to accommodate his thriving practice, Pure Gold Professionals in Dentistry. Then the economy tanked, hundreds of patients stopped coming, and Vines decided he needed help.

Were you among the millions of people who gasped in horror -- and maybe a little glee -- at the story of the scorned dentist who yanked out her ex-lover's teeth in revenge? Turns out the story appears to be a hoax. And among those who fell for it? Yours truly, and the Los Angeles Times. On May 1, I wrote how the story of a vengeful dentist in Poland named Anna Mackowiak was richocheting around the Internet and setting social media channels on fire. On Facebook alone, it was shared thousands upon thousands of times.

These days, you'd have to be pretty daring--or pretty dumb--to put your home at risk to open an ad agency in Los Angeles. But that's what Cary Sacks and John Fuller did. Even as business in the Los Angeles ad market hit the skids nine months ago, the two daredevils left the local office of Della Femina McNamee and took out fat home equity loans to open Sacks/Fuller Advertising. "We knew we couldn't goof up," said John Fuller, the agency president.

No saber-rattling Re "The Iran threat," Opinion, Dec. 1 I read Max Boot's article carefully, but nowhere did I find any mention in the tallying of Iran's aggression against the West the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq's government by the CIA in 1953, our installing the shah and our close relationship with that oppressive regime as possible reasons for Iran not liking or trusting us. With regard to Iran's possibly...

Not all health insurance is created equal: Dentists are far less willing to treat children with public health insurance than they are for children with private health coverage, according to a new study. The findings, published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics, found that children on Medicaid were 38 times more likely to be denied any appointment by dentists who were not enrolled in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program -- and were still 18 times more likely to be rejected by even those dentists who did accept Medicaid insurance.

`The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research has revised an earlier study detailing severe shortages of dentists in several California counties. A technical error -- which arose because some ZIP Codes span two counties -- caused an underestimate in the total number of active dentists and the ratio of dentists to population in some areas. The overall remain largely the same: Some counties are experiencing a severe shortage and others may soon see shortages when aging dentists retire.

Were you among the millions of people who gasped in horror -- and maybe a little glee -- at the story of the scorned dentist who yanked out her ex-lover's teeth in revenge? Turns out the story appears to be a hoax. And among those who fell for it? Yours truly, and the Los Angeles Times. On May 1, I wrote how the story of a vengeful dentist in Poland named Anna Mackowiak was richocheting around the Internet and setting social media channels on fire. On Facebook alone, it was shared thousands upon thousands of times.

I was disappointed, and surprised, when reading your Dec. 29 article, "Medical-Waste Mess Leads to Fees for Health Professionals," to learn that The Times apparently does not know that a dentist is a doctor. A veterinarian is also a doctor, as well as numerous other professionally trained people. The title "doctor" is a generic term not intended to be used to exclusively indicate a medical doctor (physician). Your consistent use of the phrase "doctors and dentists" is incorrect, benighted and offensive to all professionals authorized to use the title "doctor."

A museum exhibit on oral health professionals might sound sadistic, but "The Future Is Now! African Americans in Dentistry" is a quick and painless look at a story that includes groundbreaking civil rights work along with the root canal work. Debuting at the California African American Museum, the compact but toothy touring show draws largely on material gathered by Dr. Clifton O. Dummett, author and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the USC School of Dentistry.

Have a toothache in Alpine County? Tough luck. There are no active dentists there, making it the most underserved dental population in California, according to a report released Thursday by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. The 700-square-mile mountainous region is one of several counties with severe dentist shortages. San Benito and Inyo counties have less than one dentist per 5,000 people; Imperial and Colusa counties have less than one dentist per 4,000.

For a quarter-century, Dr. Terry Vines built his Redlands dental practice the old-fashioned way: one mouth at a time. Vines sponsored youth soccer teams. He renovated historic buildings around town to build good will. He turned his waiting room into a cozy nook with soft chairs and a big-screen TV. As business increased, Vines hired more dentists to accommodate his thriving practice, Pure Gold Professionals in Dentistry. Then the economy tanked, hundreds of patients stopped coming, and Vines decided he needed help.

Hundreds of would-be volunteers filed into the Los Angeles Sports Arena early Thursday morning for the first day of a massive clinic that will offer free care by doctors, dentists, optometrists and other volunteers. The clinic, organized by L.A.-based CareNow, will run through Sunday and expects to treat roughly 5,000 patients. One of those patients, Arsie Taylor, 65, said she has Medi-Cal but does not have dental insurance and had not been to a dentist in about three years.

Little surprises Nagaraj Murthy, a dentist in Compton for the past 32 years. He has seen patients who have suffered toothaches for years. Others who haven't been to the dentist in a decade. Some who can't chew hard food. But in the two years since California sharply reduced dental benefits for roughly 3 million Medi-Cal recipients, he and other dentists say the situation has become dire for patients who are waiting until their infections land them in an emergency room or their rotted teeth have to be immediately pulled.

Millions of people each year are skipping out on their annual trip to the dentist. And it's not because they're afraid of the drill. Many people just can't find a dentist or can't pay for a visit: 33.3 million Americans live in a region with a shortage of dental professionals; kids, seniors and minorities are particularly vulnerable. And because dental care usually isn't provided as part of a standard health insurance package, even under Medicare, many Americans simply can't afford it. In 2008, 4.6 million kids skipped their dental checkups because their families couldn't pay, and in 2006, only 38 percent of retirees had dental coverage.

The first scene Charlie Day shot with his costar Jennifer Aniston on the set of the new comedy "Horrible Bosses" required him to sprawl out in a dentist's chair as though he had been drugged while the tanned and taut actress, dressed in lingerie, straddled him predatorily. "It was awkward," Day said, recalling the scene months later during an interview. Then again, the 35-year-old added pragmatically: "Actors put ourselves in awkward positions all the time. There's something methodical about it. You stand on a piece of green tape and say a line or you stand on a piece of green tape and pretend you're passed out while someone's half-naked on top of you. If you can't pull that off, God help you. " In the Warner Bros.

Reporting from Sacramento -- More than 1,400 state employees were paid in excess of $200,000 last year, according to compensation data made public for the first time Tuesday on Controller John Chiang's website. Of those, 790 were prison doctors, dentists or nurses. More than 300 others were psychiatrists and other medical professionals working for the Department of Mental Health. One prison doctor collected $777,423 in 2010 and a dentist took home $599,403, according to the website . The president of the state's stem cell research agency received $482,234.

It's not a pretty picture, the overall state of dental care for California's kids. That's because too many of them -- one-quarter, to be exact -- don't have it. Yep. One in 4 have never even been to a dentist. That attention-grabbing statistic is from a dental-care study released Wednesday and published in the July issue of the journal Health Affairs. It analyzed care -- or, rather, lack thereof -- for children ages 11 and under in the so-called Golden State. The researchers, from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the California HealthCare Foundation, found that the picture is especially bleak for Latino and African American kids, regardless of whether they have private insurance or public insurance (Medicaid for the Children's Health Insurance Program)

If you're still staring at a mountain of M&Ms and mini Snickers bars, consider taking some to a Halloween candy buyback program at a nearby dentist's office. The sweet solution prevents kids (and parents) from eating too much and donates the booty to troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Here's how the nationwide program works: Dentists who have registered with the program pay $1 per pound of candy brought to their offices. Dates of the nationwide buyback vary, but some dentists are accepting candy until Friday.

Note to parents — and some dentists: Children should see a dentist by their first birthday or when their first teeth arrive, whichever comes sooner. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry have been spreading this message for years. But many general dentists and pediatricians — and thus many parents — haven't gotten the message. Some healthcare professionals are still telling parents to wait until children are 3 or 4 to take them to the dentist.

Dental lasers are either an indispensable tool in a dentist's toolkit or an emerging-but-unproven technology. It depends on whom you ask. They came into use in general dentistry about 15-20 years ago but even now are used only by about 6% to 8% of dentists nationwide. The two main categories are soft-tissue lasers, used mostly for gum contouring and minor surgical procedures, and hard-tissue lasers, used to treat small- to moderate-size cavities. Experts agree that, as the costs of lasers fall, their use will spread.