July 14, 2008
On June 11, 2008 the Dalhousie Dental Clinic started an exciting new rotation for the students that should help them take what they’ve learned in the classroom and use it in real life situations. The fourth year students will be ‘on-call’ for Emergencies weekday evenings and weekends. Dr. April Nason was named the coordinator for the program.
The students are on-call for 2 week rotations: Monday to Friday 5pm to 9pm, Saturday, Sunday and Holidays from 9am to 5pm. There are no evening rotations on the weekends or holidays. Several dentists have joined Dr. Nason to supervise these rotations. We are still looking for more dentists to be on-call with the students for 2 weeks at a time.
The flow of patient calls goes as follows: A patient will call the after hours number and the answering service will determine if they are an active patient and have a dental emergency. If they meet these requirements, the service will phone the primary on-call student. The student will then call the patient back and ask a series of questions to determine the nature and severity of the emergency. Once all the information is collected the student will phone the on-call dentist to review the case and determine if advice can be given over the phone, a prescription needs to be called in, if the patient can wait until the next day to see their student or, if the patient needs to be seen in the clinic. If the patient needs to be seen it will be managed in the Dr. J. D. McLean Centre where all resources necessary are provided. The students have had an orientation to know what and where the necessary materials and equipment ar e located.
The focus of this experience is to teach the students that a dentist’s responsibility to their patients doesn’t end when they leave the office. It also gives them hands-on experience with what to do in case of an emergency, which up until now, has not been part of the Dalhousie education. Dr. Nason said that she personally had a crash course in emergency care her first week as a resident in Edmonton, Alberta where interns took calls for the Edmonton and Northern Alberta area. She said that she spent many hours stressed over how to treat these cases and wondering if she had done the right thing. An experience like this as a dental student would have been greatly beneficial. Now, however, emergencies are the favorite part of her day! (A love she doesn’t expect everyone to share). This experience, she feels, will also benefit the dental community as a whole. It will be a relief to know that the graduating dentists will know what to do in case they see one of their patients with an emergency.
If you would like to be part of a regular rotation, it would be greatly appreciated. If you can help out with only 1, two-week rotation, your assistance would be greatly appreciated. Dr. Nason can work around people’s schedules to accommodate most situations. Obviously the more people who help out the less often each of you would have to be on-call. Ideally, she would like to have enough dentists on board so that each person would only be on-call once a term.
If you are interested or have questions or concerns please feel free to contact Dr. Nason directly via email at nasona@dal.ca or Roberta Emms at Roberta.emms@dal.ca, 494-1681. Dr. Nason looks forward to your support in this new endeavour and joining the Dalhousie dental students in this new and exciting experience.