An Office‐Based Emergencies Course for Third‐Year Dental Students

Abstract

Although uncommon, medical emergencies do occur in the dental ofice setting. This article describes the development and implementation of an ofice-based emergencies course for third-year dental students. The course reviews the basic management of selected medical emergencies. Background information is provided that further highlights the importance of proper training to manage medical emergencies in the dental ofice. Details regarding course development, implementation, logistics, and teaching points are highlighted. The article provides a starting point from which dental educators can modify and adapt this course and its objectives to it their needs or resources. This is a timely topic that should beneit both dental students and dental educators.Dr. Wald is an Emergency Physician,

Simulation‐Based Medical Emergencies Education for Dental Students: A Three‐Year Evaluation

“…Due to the complexity of the course, in the areas of staffing, timing in the curriculum, or potentially subtle variation in instructions, we find the interpretation of these findings to be challenging. Although there were some areas that required more focused training in the future, our findings were consistent with the study by Wald et al, which identified significant improvement in dental students' self‐reported comfort in managing three clinical scenarios following simulation training 9 …”

“…Alkhater and Al‐Harthy reported the need to integrate a course about medical emergencies management at dental clinics and added a simulated medical emergency response experience for dental students 8 . While few studies have evaluated a simulation component in medical emergencies training for predoctoral dental students, simulation‐based training programs have been developed and demonstrated value in dental curricula 2, 9 – 12 . In addition, researchers have applied lessons learned from aviation's simulated crew resource management training with a shared mental model to improve clinical care 6 .…”

High‐fidelity simulation in training dental students for medical life‐threatening emergency

“…Already 1986, the analysis of 6505 questionnaires completed by dentists from 72 American schools emphasised the need to train practitioners in the management of medical emergencies in the dental office . First aid care teaching is now integrated into the initial training of dental surgery students in most universities, but with a large disparity in the number of hours devoted to this learning …”

“…Having proven itself in many industrial fields including aerospace, simulation has developed considerably in medicine and has become an essential educational tool both for initial training and continuing education. High‐fidelity models can reproduce infrequent critical situations and enable professional training without risk to patient safety in multiple specialties such anaesthesiology, emergency medicine, obstetrics in order to improve clinical practice …”

Patients’ views on dentists’ ability to manage medical crises – results of focus group research

“…Medical emergencies remain an occurrence in dental practice (1,2), with recent studies suggesting that the incidence of emergencies may be increasing (3,4). Trends in international data from multiple countries indicate that the rise in medical emergencies is not limited to an ageing population (2,3), but includes increases in comorbidities (5)(6)(7), the use of drugs in dentistry (8), and an increase in dental visitation (9). In Australia, limited evidence from the 1990s estimated the prevalence of medical emergencies to be as infrequent as once every forty practice-years (10).…”