Should I Contact A Lawyer About This?

Three days ago (1-6-25) I visited my dentist to have a dental crown put back in after it had pulled out on New Years Eve while chewing gum. While I was in the chair and my dentist was preparing to re-install my crown, he broke open a tube of what I understand as dental cement and spilled what seemed like the majority of it onto my face, mostly beside my mouth and onto my cheek. At first, I didn't think much of it and didn't feel anything. My dentist took his finger and used the bib they put on you and kinda quickly wiped the majority of the blob off my cheek, but left plenty of the substance still on there and didn't seem to pay much attention or care to it being, and drying, on my skin.

Over the next couple minutes I could feel a burning sensation on my cheek where this stuff was. I still wasn't too concerned, after all I figured these concoctions are probably pretty potent in order to do the job effectively. I thought to myself I'll just use the restroom immediately following the conclusion of my dentist's task and I will just wash it off with soap and water and it should be fine. By the time I got to the bathroom I could see a slight redness where the chemical was. I washed the area off best I could with what I had available. By this time, it was nearing the end of the business day and the dental office was closing soon, so I decided not to inquire further about my concern with any of the staff, which at that time I will say was still relatively low.

Over the course of my 30 minute drive home, my cheek was burning worse and worse. Once I finally got to my house, I went in and looked in the bathroom mirror and to my shock, pretty much the entire outer layer of skin where that chemical was had been 'burned' off! The closest thing I could compare it to would be a brush burn...so I essentially had an open wound on my face at this point. Except it was from a chemical, so I was extremely distressed at this point.

So fast-forward to the next morning, I call the dentist's office to explain what had happened. The first call lasted less than 60 seconds, as the receptionist sounded busy and didn't exactly ask a whole lot of questions. I gave her a brief explanation and she said she would talk to the dentist and call me back. A short time later, she did. It became pretty clear she didn't quite grasp the severity and magnitude of the situation. She first recommended trying some "medicated chapstick" if there was a couple sore spots, but after further discussion she finally understood it was a fairly large open would on the side of my face! I had asked if anything like this had ever happened before, what the stuff even was, and what my appropriate course of action should be to treat it. She said she would talk to the dentist again to clarify the situation and she would once again call me back. Well that never happened.

So here I am, sitting here with this huge ugly wound on my face that I'm praying won't scar, wondering how big of a deal I should make about this? Is a situation like this worthy of a settlement? Should I try harder to keep in contact with the dental office to give them a chance to make it right?

If I should pursue legal action, what is the first step in that? Would this he considered medical malpractice of some sort?

*I tried to post a picture of my wound but cannot figure out how to??