Denplan doing OK

Dr_Crypto

Dental has got real problems ahead not just with reopening but the fact that limited to no training has been provided to dental students and trainees since March. It’s going to be difficult to get these people caught up and ready to enter independent practice.
In my hospital they had dentists helping on the wards (obviously most decisions were made by doctors). 

onwards&upwards

Brook2jack, I’m sure there are good dentists who are frustrated at not being able to provide essential care for theit patients, but if the profession as a whole had spoken out and insisted on continuing to look after people’s important oral health needs, they could have done.  

The terror of AGPs is ridiculous, what do you think the other health professions have been doing all this time?  They can’t run away from them and lots of them are in far riskier positions than a dental surgery! 

This year, may people will have lost teeth they didn’t need to lose, with all the health implications that brings, they will have had oral cancers go undetected, abscesses worsen until there are serious complications.  The profession as a whole needs to look long and hard at it’s accountability for that.  

Don’t try and tell me every dentist in the country was propping up hospital wards, that was a minority.  

ripplyuk

 By law the staff have to have the fp3 masks off at least every hour as oxygen levels drop and people overheat in the PPE . 

@brook2jack I thought that was a myth! I was wearing an FFP3 mask for 6 hours on Friday, without a break. Was that dangerous? I didn’t notice any ill effects but I don’t want to be depriving myself of oxygen. 

brook2jack2

Dentists did not make the decisions about agps , the governments in each country have made those decisions . 

Worldwide dentistry has been acknowledged to be the highest risk profession because of proximity to aerosols , length of exposure and Proximity to patients https://www.nationalelfservice.net/dentistry/dental-workforce/occupations-highest-potential-exposure-covid-19/. The US is acknowledged not to handle corona well but this is their precautions https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/dental-settings.html very similar to ours. 

Each country has put its own precautions into place , in Canada its three hours between patients , in France twenty minutes, in the U.K. one hour. There is little research on the precautions we have to take but they have been laid down in minute detail  and dentists have to follow this. 

Dentists have protested long and hard , many practices have already gone out of business and others are on the brink because they cannot run economically under the current restrictions. However dentistry is not at the back of the queue , it is not even in the queue when it comes to healthcare. Eg https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52879642

Dr_Crypto

onwards&

The terror of AGPs is ridiculous, what do you think the other health professions have been doing all this time?  They can’t run away from them and lots of them are in far riskier positions than a dental surgery! 

The fear of AGPs is well founded and all healthcare providers have been taking care with them. Elective activity in the NHS everywhere was all but stopped until late June and we all have a huge backlog.
Dentistry involves very high risk AGPs unlike most medicine which isn’t AGP. In hospitals we were told not to even look inside mouths as it is was so risky (the virus is thought to live in the throat). 

It’s being reviewed now but until recently all patients having surgery had to isolate for 14 days after a negative covid swab before being allowed to have the operation. 

brook2jack2

Dr_Crypto said:

Dental has got real problems ahead not just with reopening but the fact that limited to no training has been provided to dental students and trainees since March. It’s going to be difficult to get these people caught up and ready to enter independent practice.
In my hospital they had dentists helping on the wards (obviously most decisions were made by doctors). 

I am involved in training graduate dentists. This will be a massive problem particularly as surgery capacity is so limited and "normal " dental practice will not resume for a very long time yet. Many training practices just don't have the surgery space anymore for trainees. In addition as an experienced dentist I find working in enhanced PPE very challenging and I've been working like this for months. A young colleague has an even bigger challenge and the changes in training will reflect this. 

That being said plans are in place to provide a safe start for them but I do feel very sorry for my young colleagues as they face a very difficult few years ahead , particularly in finding jobs and the pay cuts that are in place. 

We will all have to be adaptable and have a good sense of humour to keep us going.

anotherbob

Maybe I should have looked here in the first place
https://www.denplan.co.uk/coronavirus/faqs

onwards&upwards

Dr_Crypto said:

onwards&

The terror of AGPs is ridiculous, what do you think the other health professions have been doing all this time?  They can’t run away from them and lots of them are in far riskier positions than a dental surgery! 

The fear of AGPs is well founded and all healthcare providers have been taking care with them. Elective activity in the NHS everywhere was all but stopped until late June and we all have a huge backlog.
Dentistry involves very high risk AGPs unlike most medicine which isn’t AGP. In hospitals we were told not to even look inside mouths as it is was so risky (the virus is thought to live in the throat). 

Pretty sure the staff on the respiratory wards, the critical care areas, the emergency departments and the end of life care settings didn’t refuse to do AGPs or go near throats.  How on earth do you think staff even managed to do swab tests without looking in throats!! 

olgadapolga

onwards&upwards said:

Dr_Crypto said:

onwards&

The terror of AGPs is ridiculous, what do you think the other health professions have been doing all this time?  They can’t run away from them and lots of them are in far riskier positions than a dental surgery! 

The fear of AGPs is well founded and all healthcare providers have been taking care with them. Elective activity in the NHS everywhere was all but stopped until late June and we all have a huge backlog.
Dentistry involves very high risk AGPs unlike most medicine which isn’t AGP. In hospitals we were told not to even look inside mouths as it is was so risky (the virus is thought to live in the throat). 

Pretty sure the staff on the respiratory wards, the critical care areas, the emergency departments and the end of life care settings didn’t refuse to do AGPs or go near throats.  How on earth do you think staff even managed to do swab tests without looking in throats!! 

My son had to attend the urgent care centre at the local hospital on Saturday (sent there by a nurse from 111) as he had a problem with his mouth. The clinician who "assessed" my son told us that they don't look into mouths. The clinician's assessment of my son's problem was that he didn't know what the issue was (not surprising being as he didn't examine my son) but that my son should go away and take ibuprofen to see if that resolved the issue.

Complete waste of time and money.

onwards&upwards

olgadapolga said:

onwards&upwards said:

Dr_Crypto said:

onwards&

The terror of AGPs is ridiculous, what do you think the other health professions have been doing all this time?  They can’t run away from them and lots of them are in far riskier positions than a dental surgery! 

The fear of AGPs is well founded and all healthcare providers have been taking care with them. Elective activity in the NHS everywhere was all but stopped until late June and we all have a huge backlog.
Dentistry involves very high risk AGPs unlike most medicine which isn’t AGP. In hospitals we were told not to even look inside mouths as it is was so risky (the virus is thought to live in the throat). 

Pretty sure the staff on the respiratory wards, the critical care areas, the emergency departments and the end of life care settings didn’t refuse to do AGPs or go near throats.  How on earth do you think staff even managed to do swab tests without looking in throats!! 

My son had to attend the urgent care centre at the local hospital on Saturday (sent there by a nurse from 111) as he had a problem with his mouth. The clinician who "assessed" my son told us that they don't look into mouths. The clinician's assessment of my son's problem was that he didn't know what the issue was (not surprising being as he didn't examine my son) but that my son should go away and take ibuprofen to see if that resolved the issue.

Complete waste of time and money.

I hope your son is feeling better.  Please contact PALS, that is not an acceptable standard of care.  

I’m a health professional, we all know going in that there is a risk of coming into contact with infectious diseases, it’s part of the job and we have a responsibility to provide care despite this small risk to ourselves.  

Health professionals refusing to provide care because they’re scared of Covid is like a fireman refusing to go near a burning building because they’re afraid of fire.