When I see a patient and I have questions about a medical history, I want information right then at the point of care. As a dentist with a focus on caring for patients with special needs, the health histories I encounter are usually complex. Having information to read about a disease is important, but sometimes … Continue reading How To Speak To Your Diabetic Patient’s Physician
Halloween is lurking just around the corner so how do we keep our teeth safe from sugar monsters just waiting to attack?! Here are our 5 favorite tips from the American Dental Association for keeping our mouths healthy this Halloween. Time It Right Eat Halloween candy (and other sugary foods) with meals or shortly after mealtime. Saliva production … Continue reading Safety from the Sugar Monsters!
Your website should respect the time and needs of your patients, and provide them easily accessible value. Can your website quickly process new patients with digital forms? Does it work well on all devices? Is all of your important information front and center? These are the questions you need to ask yourself when you evaluate … Continue reading Does Your Website Respect the Needs of Your Patients?
I, like many dentists in private practice, am presented daily with a number of professional reading options: printed journals and newsletters, online journals and online communities offering blogs, articles and advertisements. Hopefully altogether these provide a group of learning sources that keep one clinically sharp, enlightened and stimulated and this range of information from systematic reviews to opinion and surveys … Continue reading Identifying “Predatory” Journals
I’ve witnessed incredible progress made in dental care options over my career, and it continues to keep my work interesting and rewarding. If I had written a “day in the life” thirty years ago it would be very different. Here is a taste of my average work day now: My day begins as I walk … Continue reading Day in the Life of a Modern Dentist
As a long time practitioner with a focus on special needs patients, I have run the gamut when it comes to dealing with patient medical histories. Systematically breaking down complex ones into manageable issues helps determine if I need to modify my standard procedures, and this is so important in providing safe, effective care. This requires … Continue reading RED ALERT: Uncontrolled Bleeding
My new patient has arrived and presents her medical history. Let’s see….there are checks by these history questions: diabetes, heart disease, heart surgery, angina, bleeding disorder, neurological problems, lung disease and prosthetic joint replacement. She takes nine medications and reports an allergy to penicillin. A history with this complexity might seem destined to increase my … Continue reading Complex Medical History = Time and Stress?
As a long time practitioner with a focus on special needs patients, I have run the gamut when it comes to dealing with patient medical histories. I have experienced and learned the importance of being systematic when dealing with patient’s medical histories and to break them down into issues that are manageable. This requires a specific … Continue reading Red Alert: Susceptibility for Infection
Dentists know that drugs are helpful for patients but that some care must always be given to make sure that the entire spectrum of activity of a drug is considered. We spend a lot of our clinical formation learning how they will impact our decision making. And though we encounter many of the same drug … Continue reading Inside the Dentist’s Mind: “Drug Reactions”
From day one in dental school forty years ago there was an emphasis on knowing if your patient had a history of rheumatic fever. That was a red flag because of the potential sequelae of heart valve disease that could result in infectious endocarditis (IE) following dental care. This resonated with me because I had … Continue reading Preventing Infectious Endocarditis: Pill or No Pill?
