Doctors

Should Patients Be Told Of Trainee Role in Their Surgery?

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An interesting article titled “Should Patients Be Told of Resident Role in Their Surgery?” appears in the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery written by James R. Hupp (2015, vol., 73, pp. 2071-2073). The article discusses how early July is the beginning of a new academic year in most hospital-based medical and dental residency programs. During this time many new doctors obtain clinical education. Hospital based dental residency programs often involved a lot of surgical procedures. The article questions if patients should be told of the residents potential role (and lack of experience) in their own surgery. The saying goes that one should try to avoid going to the emergency room or have surgery the first week of July or even all of July. The common thought is that the large amount of new trainees increases the chances of patient problems. In actuality, most first-year residents are given limited or … Read more

Should a Dentist Work While They are Sick?

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An interesting article titled “Ethical concerns of working while ill,” appears in the Sept. 2015, issue of JADA (vol. 146, no. 9, pp. 711-712). The article talks about a dentist who over a period of a few days got progressively sicker. The article questions whether or not he should work or take time off until he gets over the illness. The article discusses a NSF International survey of workers that says 26% of all workers go into work when sick. The article says that 42% of Americans  work while sick. The article states that dentists have an obligation to do no harm to their patients. If they report to work while sick and are treating older patients who have increased risk of getting pulmonary illness this can be a problem. The article states that dentists also need to provide a certain … Read more

The Importance of Reputation Management for Dentists

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The dental malpractice law field is alive with some companies encouraging patients to sue dentists. It is possible for dentists to have as many as three or more complaints lodged against them at a single time. This causes stress to dentists and dampens the quality of care provided for patients. Whilst we can’t, unfortunately, change the culture that allows this to occur dentists can take steps to try and manage their reputation and reduce the risk to have a suit. These techniques can be used to improve customer interactions and try to mitigate any negative feelings or resentments patients may feel . So how can dentists manage their reputation more effectively? Patient Interactions The most important place to start is with patient care. With often heinously busy schedules dentists can skip over some of the niceties of patient interactions. However, when it comes to the perception of … Read more

The History of Dental Pain Management: The Progress That Has Been Made

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This is a guest article by Dr. Justin Clemens. Within the past 30 – 40 years, it has become increasingly popular to sedate patients to have dental work completed. Although this seems like a long time, in the sense of medicine and dentistry, it really isn’t. This is where the true melding point of medicine and dentistry occurred. Let’s take a little trip in time to see where we began in dentistry to help us better understand where we are now in terms of pain management. The most recent of what we would call “modern dentists” were more like “tooth mechanics”. They were simply drill and fill or just yank it out with no numbing at all. This was until the advent of cocaine in the late 1800s. It is from cocaine that we derive all of our synthetic local anesthetics with … Read more

Can a Dentist Lose Their Skills Over Time?

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An interesting article titled “Keeping skills current” appears in the May 2015 issue of JADA by Don J. Ilkka. The article discusses the ethics of what a pediatric dentist should do who used to perform sedation on his patients over 20 years ago, but now wants to do so again. For the around 20 year gap the pediatric dentist had an anesthesiologist in his office to monitor the sedation. The article discusses how there are many issues at work here. This includes if the dentist can legally perform the sedation and if he is qualified to do so or needs any additional training. Furthermore, there is a question about whether the staff of the dentist is qualified to support him. Working without an anesthesiologist may cause the dentist to perform less cases a day. The article states “As the dentist you describe … Read more