Send your letters to the Editor, British Dental Journal, 64 Wimpole Street, London, W1G 8YS. Email bdj@bda.org. Priority will be given to letters less than 500 words long. Authors must sign the letter, which may be edited for reasons of space.
Sir, with reference to the story 'Prescribe your patients plain English, doctors ordered' published in The Times newspaper on 4 September 2018:
'Dear valued customer/ dental practitioner,
What a delight it was to meet you when you called into our dental visitor centre for a bit of a chinwag last week.
Your dentist asked us to see you after you complained about having some soreness from one of your back toothipegs. Some of the pink bits over the tooth were a bit lumpy, there was green gooey stuff coming from it and it smelled horrible. He gave you some tablets to help it, but these gave you a gippy tummy and you stopped them.
I see from your medical history that you had a teensy-weensy heart attack some time ago and take tablets from your doctor for your ticker and some other little blue ones.
It would be a good idea just to pop this tooth out and be done with it.
I have no doubt that everything will be just tickety-boo, but I have given the usual warnings anyway.
Love, your maxillofacial surgeon'
Note to readers
These letters have been created for the entertainment of readers in the spirit of seasonal good humour and, on the whole, are entirely fictional.
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Ovenstone, D. Communication: Patient communication: plain English. Br Dent J 225, 994 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.2018.1090
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.2018.1090