You are a dental student shadowing a dentist, you notice they've called in the wrong Mrs Smith to the appointment, and the plan for the appointment is a wisdom tooth removal, what do you do?

In a situation like this, you should not expect the dentist to notice the patient mix-up sometime soon. The key thing here is to voice this before any sort of treatment starts because you want to protect the patient that is in the chair now.

Remember to remain respectful and calm while you inform the dentist. You might want to say something like 'Excuse me Dr ____, I'm not sure if this is the right Mrs Smith, can we just double check together?'

You don't want to undermine the dentist in front of the patient as this is unnecessary embarrassment for the dentist, and this can also change the perception of dentists to the Mrs Smith in the chair.

It would now be the dentist's responsibility to follow up on the identity of the patient. If you were the dentist in this situation, you should check their full name, DOB and first line of the address, and then apologise for the mix up.