Be With Your Patient

    Even though my first passion in dentistry was and still often is dental assisting, I realized that I don't write much about it.  Well, today I will.  Friday is a day that we reserve for our more complicated cases.  It's usually just my boss, the patient and I in the office.  Sometimes another staff member comes in to handle the front desk.  We do our most intense dentistry on Fridays and really get in the zone.
    Our first patient was a gentleman who needed four extractions.  He had some health complications and was extremely apprehensive.  His gingival tissue was still inflamed despite being on antibiotics for a week so the delivery of local anesthetic was uncomfortable.  I generally comfort patients in some way at times like that and I was rubbing his arm during the injection.  When my boss was finished the patient said, "Thanks for the arm rub, it felt like someone was in it with me."  Basically he felt seen, heard, understood and comforted.  The extractions went well and he went home thankful and relieved.
    The second procedure was an implant placement on a very healthy middle-aged woman.  Again, our patient was apprehensive.  I suggested nitrous oxide which took the level of her tension down very nicely.  She needed a sinus elevation and when my boss started tapping the osteotome with the mallet she came very close to panic.  I've had a sinus elevation.  I knew just how she felt. I could empathize with her completely. Her knees drew up and her hands started grasping for anything.  It doesn't hurt, it's just really creepy and sounds ridiculously loud in your head.  I held her hand and kept telling her that everything was going just as it should and that I had had the same procedure and she would be fine.  She got through it and again was thankful for the reassurance. 

    The dentist has his hands full during these procedures just trying to perform dentistry.  The assistant can be his second pair of hands, eyes and ears.  It is up to her to keep in tune with what is happening emotionally with the patient.  The difference a caring assistant can make is huge.  I hear dentists talking about their assistants peeking in their pockets at their cell phones while they're working and I wonder what is missing that makes them care about that.  First of all, expectations from the dentist must be clear.  Cell phones should be put away during patient care hours.  That benefits the employee and the patient.  The patient gets the full attention of the person caring for them.  The employee gets to be fully in the moment with the patient.  There is a lot of satisfaction in that.  It is what makes the difference between a professional and a worker.  Another important aspect that is sometimes missing is communication from the dentist to the staff about the impact they have on the dentist and the patients.  Good, caring staff allow the dentist to feel confident about what is happening with the patients and can make a world of difference in the patient's experience during treatment.  By letting the staff know that, the dentist will encourage the staff to continue to serve the patients well. We all owe it to ourselves and our patients to really be there with them.  Dentists should accept nothing less from their staff members and staff members should remember that they are in a privileged position of trust from both the dentist and the patient.