A dentist, performing professional services for a patient, owes that patient the following duties of care:

1. The duty to have that degree of learning and skill ordinarily possessed by reputable dentists, practicing in the same or a similar locality and under similar circumstances;
2. The duty to use the care and skill ordinarily exercised in like cases by reputable members of the profession practicing in the same or a similar locality under similar circumstances; and
3. The duty to use reasonable diligence and his best judgment in the exercise of skill and the application of learning. A failure to perform any one of these duties is negligence.

Another way to describe the stan­dard of care is to determine what would be reasonable and prudent conduct under the same or similar circum­stances. It is not necessarily what is taught in dental schools or described in dental textbooks. Rather, it is what an expert witness will state is their be­lief as to the “standard of care,” and then it is for the jury to decide which expert’s opinion is most credible.

The same applies for specialists, and the jury is told by the judge that:

It is the duty of a [dentist] who holds himself out as a specialist in a particular field of [dental], surgical or other healing science, to have the knowledge and skill ordinarily pos­sessed, and to use the care and skill or­dinarily used, by reputable specialists practicing in the same field and in the same or a similar locality and under similar circumstances. A failure to ful­fill such duty is negligence.