NMDA Journal Summer 2020

20 New Mexico Dental Journal, Summer 2020 The last several weeks have been unprecedented and stressful for everyone, and I don’t think anyone can say that they expected us to be where we are at today. Youmay be an essential or non-essential worker…or youmight be a dentist, like always we’re somewhere in between. Fromboth early ADA recom- mendations and then statemandates, dental offices and clinics were told to avoid non-emergency proce- dures. What any practicing dentist knows is that our patients don’t come in with a big red or green light above them telling us if their treatment is going to turn into an emergency in a day, amonth, or a year. This is the problem that we were all forced to deal with in deciding how to “shut down,” but still be there for our patients. I'll volunteer what our office at Gherardi & Moore did purely as an anecdotal account of our decisions and experiences (on what seemed to be a daily or even hourly basis at times) and not at all a recommendation of what anyone else should or should not have done, because we know all of our practices are different in the proce- dures we do and the patient population we see. (I would also like to say that I do not believe there is “one, perfect” answer to this situa- tion. We are all doctors, and we all have to use our best judgement.) The first inklings of change started for us the week of March 9, 2020. We had been well aware, like everyone else, that there were the waves of the virus moving through the world, but still didn’t think drastic measures would make their way to us. Like most others, we were concerned with our patients’ and staff’s safety so we began at least discussing plans for new procedural changes, but didn’t know for certain to what extent we should do so, be forced to do so, or if they would even be needed at all. It was March 11 that the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared the COVID-19 virus a pandemic. This was coincidently the first day that any cases, of which there were four, were reported in New Mexico. It was March 12 that we began implementing our first new office policies. It began with simple things. We had everyone, patients and staff, wash their hands upon entering a treatment room, patients do a pre-procedural rinse, and removed all common area/waiting room items such as magazines and pens. We began calling all patients who were deemed “at-risk” prior to their appointment to offer rescheduling. Our schedule began to take care of itself because most of the time during our calls our patients were already aware of the situation and happy to resched- ule. Meanwhile, many others who were not “at-risk,” but were still concerned called us to cancel or reschedule themselves. There was very little convincing that we ever had to do to tell a patient who shouldn’t be coming in that they should reschedule. Beginning Monday morning March 16, we began limiting both our dentist and hygiene schedule to only necessary and urgent proce- dures addressing active disease and/or dysfunction. Here we also began screening all patients for any symptoms or travel related his- tory. It was by the end of the day on this Monday that the NMDA first announced their recommendation to delay non-emergency treat- ment, which the ADA made at virtually the same time. A Dental Practice's Recounting to COVID-19 Changes By Joe Gherardi, DDS