During this lecture, Dr. Tom will present the most commonly encountered medical emergencies in dental offices and discuss practical and efficient methods to recognize, diagnose, refer or possibly treat conditions such as: shortness of breath, chest pain, altered consciousness/loss of consciousness, swallowing/aspirating a foreign object, rapid heartbeat, shakiness and unconsciousness.

Basic physiology for underlying conditions and presentations will be discussed along with the appropriate and contemporary interventions needed by dental professionals to handle such emergencies in a dental office setting. Participants will be guided through problem-solving scenarios as an exercise to stimulate critical thinking.

Additionally, participants will be able to prepare themselves and their staff members to adequately manage medical emergencies effectively and promptly in a dental office setting. Old recommendations and directives will be challenged with new evidence and case-based scenarios that include optimizing the dental chair for basic life support, removing ammonia inhalants from the medical emergency kit, pulse oximetry and AED uses and effective mask ventilation for rescue breathing. Both general practitioners and specialists will find the problem-based medical emergency “walk-throughs” useful for their practices.

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 (i.e. pulse oximetry, automatic external defibrillators, glucometers and newer drug therapies) that are in alignment with emergency medical services and emergency room physicians

Who Should Attend

This informative course is intended for dentists, specialists and allied dental professionals working in private practice settings.

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.