dentistry

Bringing Rapid HIV Testing to Dentistry

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An interesting study has been performed by the University of Sydney in 2014, looking at the possibility of using rapid HIV testing before dental surgery. The study assessed 521 Sydney based dental patients and their willingness to undergo rapid HIV testing in dental settings, their preference for HIV testing type, and their willingness to pay for the HIV test. More than 80% of the patients in the study were found to be willing to undergo rapid HIV testing before a dental procedure. The technology behind a rapid HIV test has been around for more than a decade but it not currently available in dental settings. The test can be done as a finger prick or a saliva swab. The results of the HIV test can be determined within 20 minutes. The Australian Federal government announced in July 2014, that they … 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

Senate Report Calls for Removing Deceptive Corporate Dentistry Entities From Medicaid

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Previously I have written an article titled Fraud and Abuse in Medicaid Clinics where a discussion was made that currently dentists have large amounts of debt when they graduate from school. This leads to them having to face potentially hard and difficult choices to pay their bills as they essentially become indentured servants. Recently Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Max Baucus (D-MT) published a 1517 page report in June 2013, titled “JOINT STAFF REPORT ON THE CORPORATE PRACTICE OF DENTISTRY IN THE MEDICAID PROGRAM.” This report is a very large PDF file (143 MB) and is available for download over at http://www.finance.senate.gov/library/prints/.  Don’t be intimidated by the size of the report though as it really is a bit over 30 pages with the rest of the 1400+ pages serving as an appendix. Hence, it is very readable. The report talks … Read more

Looking at Evidence Supporting Dental Procedures from Cochrane Systematic Reviews

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An interesting article titled “Is the Evidence Supporting Dental Procedures Strong? A Survey of Cochrane Systematic Reviews in Oral Health” by Clovis Mariano Faggion Jr. appears in J Evid Base Dent Pract, vol. 12, pp. 131-134, 2012. The article sets out to explore Cochrane systematic reviews and whether or not they provide useful information for use in dentistry. The author set out to look at the quality of evidence for Cochrane systematic reviews published in dentistry. The evidence was considered inadequate when authors described weak or insufficient evidence or when no studies were selected for the review. A total of 120 systematic reviews were looked at for 20 topics. The author did have some creative interpretation to assess the reviews. He states: “The full text of articles was, however, scrutinized to assess the risk of bias of included primary studies; methodological … Read more