This lecture course will cover the most encountered medical emergencies in the dental office. Practical and efficient methods to recognize, diagnose, refer or treat conditions such as shortness of breath, chest pain, altered consciousness, loss of consciousness, unconsciousness, swallowing/aspirating a foreign object, rapid heartbeat, and shakiness will be discussed.

Understanding the basic physiology of these conditions and the appropriate contemporary interventions will help dental professionals prepare, identify and manage potential medical emergencies effectively and promptly as they occur.

Long-held recommendations and directives will be challenged and replaced with new evidence and case-based scenarios to include optimizing the dental chair for basic life support, removing ammonia inhalants from the medical emergency kit, adequate mask ventilation for rescue breathing and pulse oximetry and AED use.

Dr. Tom's presentation will conclude with several real-life medical emergency cases. Participants will be guided into recognizing and correctly determining a proper course of action given a presentation of the conditions mentioned above. Specialists, generalists, and allied dental professionals will find these scenarios helpful to their practice and should be ready to implement these protocols after active discussion.

You Will Learn

• To recognize common patient complaints that indicate an impending medical emergency
• To prepare yourself, your staff, and your surroundings to manage medical emergencies
• To understand evidence-based therapies used to treat common medical emergencies outside of a hospital setting
• To implement strategies within your practice to prevent or minimize medical emergencies
• To employ contemporary monitoring and rescue aids (pulse oximetry, automatic external defibrillators, glucometers and newer drugs therapies that are in alignment with emergency medical services and emergency room physicians

Who Should Attend

This informative course is designed for dentists, specialists and all members of the dental team.

University of the Pacific, Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry is one of the nation's premier dental schools and has served the Bay Area community for more than 100 years. The dental school is committed to excellence and innovation in education, research, community service and patient care. The Division of Continuing Dental Education is dedicated to educating dental professionals by providing the highest quality CE programs available in dentistry today.