Dental Residents and COVID-19

[Sea84]

I'm a current dental resident (ortho) wondering how others' institutions are managing emergency appointments during the COVID pandemic. Are you seeing your department's emergencies, or is faculty? Are you required to see general dental emergencies (if you are a specialist) through the hospital or dental school you are at? Any input is helpful - thank you!

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[FutureDent020]

Endo resident- we do emergencies M/W/F. We stay on call and OMFS triages everything at the hospital. If they deem it important to save and it’s a legit “dental emergency” they call us in. We have to wear N95 masks and face shields and work out of the faculty practice rather than the Endo clinic. Nothing about it is convenient.

 

[Sea84]

Endo resident- we do emergencies M/W/F. We stay on call and OMFS triages everything at the hospital. If they deem it important to save and it’s a legit “dental emergency” they call us in. We have to wear N95 masks and face shields and work out of the faculty practice rather than the Endo clinic. Nothing about it is convenient.

Thanks for responding - my program is having us rotate taking emergency calls remotely. Additionally, we (and all other residents) are being asked to see patients in the urgent care clinic as the dental students are not permitted at school. Just trying to gauge if this is consistent with what other institutions are doing.

 

[AONLINE]

Thanks for responding - my program is having us rotate taking emergency calls remotely. Additionally, we (and all other residents) are being asked to see patients in the urgent care clinic as the dental students are not permitted at school. Just trying to gauge if this is consistent with what other institutions are doing.

As an ortho resident are you performing any general dentistry procedures (e.g. fillings, simple extractions) in urgent care clinic?

 

[Sea84]

As an ortho resident are you performing any general dentistry procedures (e.g. fillings, simple extractions) in urgent care clinic?

To my knowledge, no. Sounds like as of now it has been primarily triaging patients.

 

[spazway]

TMD:
We've been primarily seeing our patients on an emergency basis, and administering Botox for our established neuropathic pain patients. Each resident has one day they're on call - we'll determine via phone call if they may need to be seen in person, then make the determination with faculty if they should come in to be seen. However, we're transitioning to telehealth visits for standard follow-up and new patients via Zoom and will trial that next week.

We've absolutely been insulated from patient interaction compared to OMFS and Endo. Those guys are working really hard.

 

[BlackThought]

All I've learned is that given the situation we are in, the word "emergency" is being used too loosely a lot of the time.