ENSURING PATIENT SAFETY
| Free broken edge of the blade where the steak knife handle broke off and has impaled his left infraorbital region through the left maxillary sinus |
UPDATE 10/16/2020 This post was originally published with an image that showed a patient under my care who was impaled by a foreign object that we removed in the operating room under controlled circumstances to ensure this patients safety. Since the original post, social media has banned my website from being shared without an explanation of the reason for the ban. This case was published to show that a patient's safety is always of the utmost importance and in addition this individuals identity has been kept private. Privacy rules are strictly followed and are also essential. This content was shared for educational purposes only as I am in the education space and have been for my entire career. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram routinely show medical providers impaling patients with needles and injecting them causing bleeding and other vividly sensitive content that they consider educational in nature. All of which is no different than the image that was shared on this blog. There is a serious double standard with the social media platform and censor some content and not others. I am a small account and this selective censoring affects individual accounts like mine. |
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| Lateral skull view with steak knife blade impaled in the midface |
I’m reminded of a past experience where a patient was impaled with a steak knife into the face through the maxillary sinus and the floor of the orbit up to the Sella turcica and the we were called as the experts in facial trauma to evaluate and treat a wound such as this one. It is our training that sets us apart from the others and not a simple description. Descriptions and definitions are necessary as a baseline but are an oversimplification of the process.
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| Waters view of the metal steak knife in the patients maxilla |
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| Broken steak knife blade retrieved after careful extirpation from the patients face. |
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| Townes view of the same patient with the steak knife blade |
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| Reverse Townes view of the steak knife blade |
1 Determining the requirements for educating, training and testing students to learn and successfully complete examination for licensure to enter the profession.
2 Determining providers area of expertise, from training and experience, for patients to understand in knowing where to seek care.
3 For State Dental Boards to issue licensure to qualifying individuals. This is a three-pronged approach. Testing knowledge, skill and coursework.
Ultimately the State Dental Board also exists to protect the public and to keep them safe. State Dental Boards are also influenced by national trends and larger organizations like the (ADA) American Dental Association and its Board and the members.
Physicians are also granted licensure in the same manner based on each state’s regulations. Requiring schooling, training through internship and successful completion of written examinations.
My educational experience included extensive science classwork and necessary hospital clinical experiences with our Otolaryngology, Plastic Surgery and Ophthalmology colleagues in a hospital setting just to name a few. Additionally, we train side-by-side with these medical specialists, performing the same procedures and expected to perform just as all the others. Rotations that include Anesthesia, Medicine, Cardiology, Neurosurgery, Emergency room medicine, Infectious diseases, General Surgery etc. These other specialties have not completed rotations that include those that OMFS do. There was no distinction between us “dentists” and our physician contemporaries. We are expected to care for and manage patients in the exact same manner as our colleagues because patient’s oral and maxillofacial area is intimately connected to the rest of the patient. There are many instances where providers perform the same treatments as other medical specialists with cross over for the exact reason, treating the whole patient.
The Girldoc 😉
http://nysdflearning.org/files/NYS_Dental_Practice_Act.pdf
http://www.op.nysed.gov/prof/med/medlic.htm
http://www.op.nysed.gov/prof/dent/dentlic.htm
https://www.ada.org/en/education-careers/licensure
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