Real-Life Decision Making
An elderly man arrives at your dental practice with a toothache. You take
a look and realize you can save the tooth if you do a root canal. The other
option is to pull out the tooth, which will leave a large and clearly visible
gap in the man's teeth.
"How much?" asks the patient. The root canal would be $400, you tell him,
but he'd get to keep his tooth. To pull it out would be $57 -- a cheap
solution, but the patient would pay for it every time he smiled.
As a dentist, you prefer that he keep the tooth. It wouldn't leave
a gap, and the tooth might very well be problem-free for the rest of his life.
Your patient, however, says, "Just yank out the tooth -- I'm on a budget."
This is a situation where cost and personal looks come into direct conflict.
You realize money is a concern for this man, so you offer him a payment plan,
which he flat out refuses. You wonder if he truly realizes how this gap in
his teeth will affect his appearance. If he changes his mind after the tooth
is pulled, he's looking at about $1,000 in bridgework to eliminate the
gap.
As this man's dentist, you have two choices. What will you
do?