Doctors

More Dental Patients Warned of Potential HIV and Hepatitis Exposure in Pennsylvania

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Back in July, 2014, I discussed a case in Pennsylvania where dental patients where made aware of possible HIV and hepatitis exposure due to infection control lapses by a dentist. This led to a 74 year old dentist having his license suspended. A video interview of several students who were treated by the dentist said that sometimes the dentist didn’t wear gloves and didn’t wash his hands between patients. See the blog post located over at https://blog.teethremoval.com/dental-patients-warned-of-possible-hiv-and-hepatitis-exposure-in-pennsylvania/. An additional case of infection control lapses has also occurred in Pennsylvania. The dentist had his license temporarily suspended due to an investigation by Pennsylvania’s department of health. A press release issued said the dentist “…did not follow appropriate procedures to properly clean, disinfect, or sterilize dental tools used at his…office.” The investigation showed the dentist admitted that he and his staff do not … Read more

Familarize Yourself with the ADA’s Principles of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct

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The American Dental Association also know as the ADA, in 2012, update their Principle of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct document. It is available over at http://www.ada.org/~/media/ADA/About%20the%20ADA/Files/code_of_ethics_2012.ashx. As many Americans make trips to the dentist, it is useful to familiarize yourself with the ADA’s document to better determine if your dentist is being ethical and serving your needs well. If you don’t feel this is the case you have options to report your dentist and of course you can find a new dentist. Additional comments on the ethics and professional conduct of the ADA and it’s members is over at http://www.ada.org/en/about-the-ada/principles-of-ethics-code-of-professional-conduct. It states “The dental profession holds a special position of trust within society. As a consequence, society affords the profession certain privileges that are not available to members of the public-at-large. In return, the profession makes a commitment … Read more

Elsevier to Bring New Dental and Oral Surgery Journal Offerings

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Recently, it has come to my attention that Elsevier will be bringing some new journal offerings to the dental community. The first offering is with the open access Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Cases journal. The website for the journal is over at http://www.oralandmaxillofacialsurgerycases.com/. There is a $500 fee to publish an article in the journal. The site states “Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Cases is a surgical journal dedicated to publishing case reports and case series only which must be original, educational, rare conditions or findings, or clinically interesting to an international audience of surgeons and clinicians. Case series can be prospective or retrospective and examine the outcomes of management or mechanisms in more than one patient. Case reports may include new or modified methodology and treatment, uncommon findings, and mechanisms. All case reports and case series will be peer reviewed for acceptance … Read more

Pediatric Dental Death in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada Spurs Comments on Dental Anesthesia

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Recently, a death has occurred in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, in a dental office. Details of the case have not yet been released, but a boy died after getting anesthetic and had a previously undetected heart condition. It seemed to have occurred sometime around late April, 2014, but the date may be off a bit. It appears that in this case the boy was brought to a hospital after the dental office in an attempt to save his life. An interesting article over in the Cambridge times published June 27, 2014, by Gordon Paul, titled “Pediatric dental surgery with anesthesia should be done in hospitals, dentist says,” provides some comments on this case. See http://www.cambridgetimes.ca/news-story/4605070-pediatric-dental-surgery-with-anesthesia-should-be-done-in-hospitals-dentist-says/. In this article comments by Dr. Hanover who is on the political action committee of the Ontario Dental Association are provided. He says “I think every pediatric dentist … Read more

Patient Safety and the Culture of Cover-Up

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An interesting article was written by George Lundberg titled “A culture of cover-up has slowed the patient safety movement” on December 1, 2012, on KevinMd.com located at http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2012/12/culture-coverup-slowed-patient-safety-movement.html. In the article Dr. Lundberg says “Promoting patient safety, preventing medical error, preventing physician error, preventing errors in diagnosis, preventing nurse error, preventing surgical error, preventing communication error, preventing health illiteracy error, preventing errors from language barriers, preventing laboratory error, preventing computer error, preventing patient mix-ups, preventing right and left side of body mix-ups, preventing mistakes, since mistakes are the stepping stones to failure. Recognizing human frailty, recognizing physician humanity, recognizing system fallibility, owning up to problems, eliminating cover-up, acting out professionalism, recognizing that professionalism means self governance, individually and as groups. Self criticism, peer criticism, a culture of peer review, honesty, truth, disclosure, fairness, and negotiated settlements. Objective evaluation and commitment … Read more