What have you been doing during the Pandemic of 2020?
A questions posed to the attendees of Drills & Frills virtual zoom meeting hosted by (NYSDA) New York State Dental Associations Ninth District leader Dr. Renuka Bijoor.
 |
| Certificate earned for exceeding the minimum requirement for Dental licensure in New York State. |
Since March 2020, I attended my 1,243rd zoom meeting last night which was after a conference call amongst New York State member Dentists. Well maybe not that many but, if you’re not fluent in knowing how zoom works, you haven’t been using it during the pandemic. Zoom, Skype and Conference calling have been important tools especially since I live in the COVID epicenter of the country, downstate New York. Brookhaven township, Suffolk County Long Island, about an hour east of NYC, and an area that was seeded by this contagion. Killing thousands of elderly in nursing homes seeded as a result of being forced to accept COVID infected patients. That I won’t discuss here now but I’ll reference an article I published in NYSDJ June/July .”Do You Have Your COVID Card”. I now digress and want to get back to how this pandemic has affected my life and what I have been doing since March 2020. Publishing articles were also on my to-do list.
Continuing Education an essential requirement for dental licensure across the United States and one that usually takes time away from a practicing dentist’s office hours and patient care, via zoom and has been a mainstay during the shutdown. This allowed me to look back at my completed certificates and compare that to my reported certificates on file with the States website. On doing so I found it was missing my BLS, Basic Life Support and ACLS, Advance Cardiac Life Support certificates over the past three cycles, nine years. Once those credits, and the ones I completed since March, pushed me over the 1,000-hour level. Patients, you should know that if your Dentist has a certificate for 500 or more hours, it shows they have gone above and beyond the current Department of Education’s requirements for Dentists of 60 hours over 3-year period in New York State. I say this was a positive experience, one that many dentists should’ve taken advantage of because most organizations offered free education and showed they support dentists who were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Here in New York dentists were only seeing emergency patients if they could meet the states operational requirements, but most of them were completely shut for over two months. The purpose for the shuttering of your offices was to stem the PPE shortage for hospitals especially since all of our PPE is manufactured and shipped from China. I digress again, only to explain the cause-effect that all people experienced.
It has been important to blog as often as I could and share topics I’m fluent in and interests that I feel others will be interested in too.
Teaching, tutoring and mentoring students has always been an integral part of my career. Actively engaging and instructing them on dentistry and subjects related to the profession is gratifying and fulfilling. Helping them to achieve their goals in a way allows me to recall the same experience I had at graduations, licensure passage and Board certification. Wyzant is a teaching platform that I utilize to participate in educating students.
Being locked in my home with nothing but my pen and my phone lead me to explore the applications available that appeal to my interests, ones that offer a fun or educational experience. Tiktok video clips are all over social media with tips on recipes, hilarious comedy, political satire and much more. It has been one of the most widely used apps across the globe with one of the fastest growing number of new users, particularly during this pandemic. It’s a venue that allows individuals to create, view and interact with video clip or a Tiktok that’s anywhere between seven seconds to one minute long. A great app to leverage as a way to share information and important messages particularly about dentistry. It’s applicable to age 13 and up. Besides producing short video clips another application I have been utilizing since 2015 is Duolingo. It’s a free language app with pay functions to enhance learners experience with the app. It works by requiring daily lessons for the user to complete with a minimum requirement of one daily lesson. A user can learn more than one language simultaneously.
Venturing outside was a necessary daily activity to remain mentally clear and to experience the fresh air and sun. My husband and I would drive to the beach or the bay or a public park to clear our minds, take in a different environment and get some physical activity. Changing up the environment seems to help avoid boredom. When it was permissible we traveled out of New York which was infested with the Corona virus infection. These short jaunts were a necessary respite again to clear our minds and to be surrounded by a new environment. During the warm weather, taking a daily swim also helped to maintain my sanity.
Voluntary Board duties with the (AAWD) American Association of Women Dentists and NYSDA also kept me involved and busy. Especially since Dentists within New York State were operating only for emergent care and most of the dental offices were shuttered. It was the goal of the NYSDA to represent dentists and lobby the governor to get these essential workers back to caring for the public as we always have. After over two months, on June 1, 2020 dentists opened for care under very strict and rigorous requirements and guidelines. The innate nature of Dentistry involves operating in a contaminated field and we have been doing a great job of maintaining safety since the AIDS epidemic in the 80’s.
Staying connected and healthy were and essential step in reaching my goals for 2020 regardless of a pandemic.
The Girldoc😉
Comments