Texas Oral Surgeon Faces Medical Malpractice Charges After 33-Year-Old Patient Dies During Extraction
Dr. Pasha Sanders, an oral surgeon in the Houston area, was named as a defendant in a wrongful death lawsuit, where she also faces medical malpractice charges. 33-year-old Donzell Jarrod Conrad visited a Castle Dental branch in Spring, Texas, in October 2024 for a chipped molar. He returned the next day under Dr. Sanders’ care, where she administered his anesthesia instead of an anesthesiologist, and he never woke up. Emergency medical technicians brought Conrad to a hospital, where he spent four weeks in a coma and then died.
Per Houston Public Media, Dr. Sanders is employed by Castle Dental, a Texas-based dental service organization (DSO), which is also named in the lawsuit. Castle Dental’s parent company, Smile Brands, is named as well. Smile Brands is owned and controlled by Gryphon Investors, a San Francisco-based private equity firm.
Are you a dentist or oral surgeon facing a wrongful death lawsuit? The LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team can help. Call us at 888-535-3686 or send us a message online.
DSOs and the Role of Private Equity in Dentistry
The lawsuit filed by Conrad’s family accuses Castle Dental and Smile Brands of negligence and specifically points blame towards the DSO model. The family’s attorneys claim that DSOs get around the Texas ban on corporate dentistry practices, as such practices may result in investors and other parties prioritizing profits over patients’ health and a quality standard of care.
Typically, DSOs own or control the practice entity or use affiliated professional corporations owned by dentists instead of a private equity group. In states that ban corporate dental practices, DSOs create professional associations or employment agreements where dentist owners maintain clinical autonomy, but the DSO manages non-clinical functions such as billing, payroll, IT, and marketing.
Depending on the precise details of the arrangement, the clinical autonomy afforded to dentists and oral surgeons under the DSO model may be in name only.
Ethical Dilemmas of Dental Professionals Employed By DSOs
Running a dental practice isn’t easy or cheap, even if the practice is small. As dentists navigate the challenges of owning a practice and caring for their patients, becoming part of a DSO holds massive appeal for the administrative support alone.
However, working within DSOs and large dental groups can pose ethical challenges. How do your ethics as a provider collide with entities that want you to see as many patients per day as possible without necessarily providing the best care to them?
When your equity partner or employer demands that you provide as many billable services as you can in a single day, this undoubtedly compromises the quality of care received. In Conrad’s case, the patient had health conditions that did not make sedation a good choice, even though his medical team recommended he have his tooth extracted. Hiring an anesthesiologist for the procedure would have been costly, but also drastically decrease the likelihood of death from anesthesia complications.
Not only must Texas dentists and oral surgeons abide by practice ethics no matter their employer, but wrongful death and malpractice charges may also result in immediate suspension of your license if any charges or convictions are practice-related.
Malpractice and wrongful death charges can be incredibly detrimental to your career and pose a serious risk to your license, even if you were forced into a difficult situation by an employer or equity partner. To learn more about how the LLF National Law Firm can advocate for dental professionals facing such charges, call us at 888-535-3686 or send us a message online.