Learning Dentistry...

I had my practical dentistry training today! Man, dentists aren't bozos--they do need to know a lot! No wonder in Europe, you have to go to medical school first and then specialize in dentistry. So this means I need to know a bit of dentistry too so I can direct my patients accordingly. There's a lot that dentists need to know about medicine as well! Like what medications would you give someone with liver cirrhosis who can't metabolize the drugs you need to give for anesthesia or what kind of prophylaxis to give someone with a mitral valve prolapse. Even treating a patient with a hip fracture replaced with a prosthetic can be fatal as bacteria from oral surgery would be prone to settle at the hip prosthetic and can be life threatening! Epinephrine is added to the anesthetic drugs to constrict the blood vessels in order to minimize bleeding but also to make sure that the anesthesia stays local so you get the maximum affect from a small dose without it leaving and dispersing into the systemic circulation. So can you give epinephrine to an anxious patient with a heart condition and a history of MIs? These are things that I think about in my practice but I didn't realize that dentists have to make these decisions everyday as well and need us to work in collaboration. True, I learned a lot about periodontitis disease and root canals and sinus lifts today, but most importantly I learned our need to communicate together in the medical realm to ensure good quality health and longevity for our patients!