Last week DOCS Education played host to the 10th Annual Sedation Safety Week, an annual program designed to remind dentists to renew their commitment to patient safety, access-to-care, and advocacy on behalf of the dental patients they serve.
The theme of the 2018 Sedation Safety Week (SSW) was “Awareness,” because even after a decade of promoting safe sedation dentistry – and all of its health and lifestyle benefits – tens of millions of Americans remain unaware of the ready availability of sedation dentistry.
Oral sedation dentistry has made great strides over the past decade in battling oral health diseases, which leave many people in perpetual pain, shy about smiling, and often unable to even chew and enjoy their food.
Science has also linked poor oral health to increased risk for a wide variety of serious illnesses, including coronary disease, cancer, diabetes, stroke, osteoporosis, and rheumatoid arthritis.
Awareness was also chosen as this year’s theme because many dentists themselves – especially those who have graduated dental school only recently – do not realize that the patients they now see represent only a fraction of the patients who need to be seen, but are too afraid to seek out dental care.
General dentists who fail to obtain the special training necessary to safely administer oral sedation – typically taught in a single three-day weekend course – are missing the opportunity to serve a much wider population of patients in need.
“Safety is never something we can take for granted. It requires dentists and their team members to follow a daily routine of taking all the steps, and following all the best protocols, that dentistry has to offer,” says Dr. Michael Silverman, founder and national chairman of Sedation Safety Week. “That is even truer of sedation dentistry – which has helped tens of millions of patients without incident – but which nevertheless always must be administered with the utmost safety in mind.”
A Wake-Up Call
Here is a surprising fact. Since DOCS Education launched Sedation Safety Week in March 2009, our organization has not identified a single instance nationwide where a patient – adult or child – was harmed by a qualified sedation dentist, when the patient was screened, sedated, and monitored following the DOCS Education safety protocols, and the guidelines set forth by the American Dental Association.
Dr. Michael D. Silverman, founder and national chairman, Sedation Safety Week
Yet, a very small number of dentists don’t pay close enough attention to safety, and sometimes their patients do suffer because of it. Some patients, tragically, even die.
Sedation Safety Week is, and has been since Day One, a wake-up call to all dentists to be ever-vigilant of the need to protect our patients, and to the many state-of-the-art tools and continuing-education training opportunities available to help guarantee patient safety.
Dr. Michael D. Silverman
A decade later, Dr. Silverman reflects:
“We are proud of what we’ve accomplished and of the lives that Sedation Safety Week assuredly has saved. At the same time, as we look ahead, we see that tens of millions of patients, and thousands upon thousands of general dentists, have yet to recognize the many benefits of safe oral sedation dentistry. We enter our second decade more committed than ever to the goal of making every week in America, a safe sedation week.”
Other Sedation Safety Week Articles of Interest:
