Nashville Dental Hygienist Saw Dental Instruments in a Home Depot Bucket. She Walked Out on the Clinic
She said there was mold everywhere.
Ann Taylor Lawrence (@anntaylor.lawrence), a dental hygienist from Nashville, told social media that she’s never walked out of an office before. But after Lawrence witnessed the state of a local clinic with a suspicious Home Depot bucket containing dental tools, she couldn’t do the job.
“I get there, it’s disgusting. When I say disgusting, I literally mean disgusting,” Lawrence alleged on TikTok. She said she had never been to the unnamed dental office before and was only supposed to do temporary work.
Lawrence further claimed that the CaviWipes, the dental sprays, and other items had all expired in 2019. She emphasized that it is already 2026, making the items unviable for medical use.
“I go to get instruments, and all the instruments are dirty, and they’re sitting in a [expletive] Home Depot bucket, Dawn dish soap, and water,” Lawrence stated. She thought the employees were kidding about the method they stored the dental tools. Lawrence claimed that the staff said she could wipe the tools with CaviWipes and place them in a bag. When she supposedly asked for the autoclave—a medical device used to sterilize tools—the staff allegedly told her that the machine was not working.
“I’m not doing this,” she said. Lawrence claimed that after witnessing the alleged horrors of the dental office, she walked up to the front desk with her belongings and told them that she would not proceed with the work.
“Why? Are you going to report us?” the staff allegedly asked, and Lawrence confirmed that she would. “Patients deserve better. This is why people don’t trust doctors. This is why when people go to a dental office, they assume everything is a scam,” Lawrence said.
A clinic no patient deserves
“Healthcare is not affordable. I’m fully aware of that,” Lawrence added. For some, experiencing the hardships of the US healthcare system has convinced them to move away. In one case, a woman who has spent a decade in the US said she was forced to go back to work in a diaper after a premature birth in fear of losing her health insurance. Nevertheless, Lawrence continued to talk about how upset she was on the patients’ behalf.
“The patients that this clinic was seeing were patients that were in a very underserved community, and not a lot of them had access to healthcare. And they had probably saved for a long time to get the care that they needed,” Lawrence said. The dental hygienist further described the allegedly squalid conditions she witnessed.
“There was literally dried blood, buildup,” Lawrence claimed. She also accused the clinic of having water hoses that were infected with mold. When Lawrence opened one of the topical bottles, she also claimed that the medication had cottonlike mold growing on top of it.
Reporting to the authorities
She believes that the clinic does not care about its patients. When she came to the front desk and told them why she no longer wanted to proceed with her service, she alleged that the person stationed there started talking about compensation.
“Do I need money? Yes, but I’m never gonna [expletive] hurt somebody, or do anything that’s gonna hurt somebody intentionally,” the dental hygienist said. In a separate update, Lawrence said that she reported the dental office to the appropriate authorities. She also said that an investigation is currently underway.
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