Evaluation and Treatment of the Medically Compromised Dental Patient

Course Description:

The medical complexity of the dental patient is ever increasing. Modern medicine has improved outcomes for previously lethal diseases and many patients who present for dental care have complicated medical management for their chronic systemic diseases. Dentists are often faced with the challenge of keeping up with these medical advances and most importantly understanding how they are relevant to the dental decision-making we are faced with. This course will address these issues and provide a medical update applicable to all dentists as well as provide a review of some common medical emergencies encountered in the dental office. It will be a stress free environment that encourages interaction and group participation. In addition, you will review some basic surgical principles and patient management skills, and hints about when to treat, when to refer, and when to get that medical consultation. Even if you don’t do much surgery in your practice, this review will help you feel more knowledgeable regarding your surgical referrals, and will give you some insight as to the treatment and assessment of your medically compromised patients.

Course Objectives:

Þ Define medical risk assessment and learn its relevance to the dental patient

Þ Understand the stress reaction and how it affects dental patients

Þ Learn how to identify red flags in the health history and determine whether it is safe to perform the planned

procedure

Þ Discuss the dental/surgical management of some common cases of medically compromised patients

Þ Identify a number of medical emergencies which occur in the dental office and learn how to treat them

Þ Learn how to create your own emergency protocols for managing medical emergencies

Þ Review the drugs and equipment you should have in the dental office

Þ Review anticoagulants and dentistry

Þ Discuss surgical complications and bisphosphonates

Þ Discuss pain management and analgesics

Speaker:

Matthew J. Dennis, D.D.S., graduated cum laude from the UCLA School of Dentistry in 1979 and completed his residency in oral and maxillofacial surgery at the University of Florida program in Jacksonville in 1983. After eighteen years of private practice in the Tampa Bay area, he came to the University of Florida in Gainesville in 2001 for a full-time academic career, where he assumed the responsibility for clinical and didactic teaching of the oral surgery curriculum as the Director of Predoctoral Education until 2015. He served as Clinical Professor and Chairman of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery from 2010 to 2013. He is certified by the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, and has been active in organized dentistry and oral and maxillofacial surgery, having held several leadership positions. He received the Teacher of the Year award for the School of Dentistry in clinical sciences in 2004 and 2009, and has received the Florida Dental Association’s Dental Educator Award three times. He has been recognized by the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons by being awarded the Predoctoral Educator of the Year award in 2010, and has served as chair of AAOMS’s committee on Predoctoral Education.