On a Thursday afternoon recently, a beautiful young lady was rushed into my office with a bloody rag held up to her mouth. Two of her front teeth were missing, the gums surrounding those teeth were torn and bleeding, and there was a broken hunk of bone hanging from the area where the teeth had been. She had been running on the field at school during lacrosse practice when another student ran into her, accidentally head-butting her in the mouth. As we tried to come up with a plan to piece this pretty child’s smile back together, I couldn’t help thinking “Why wasn’t she wearing a mouthguard?” [Read more…]