Bird Flu and Dentistry / A Personalized Home Disaster Dental Kit?

Lately I have been alarmed at the avian flu situation. Hopefully, I am not one of those high strung worry worts that scours the news for oncoming disasters. Okay, believe me, I'm not. But I've always been fascinated by infectious disease, even in the dental office. Infectious disease is a puzzle and I love to watch people who know what they are doing piece things together. So, lately I log on at least once a day to http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/ (click on the Avian Flu link on the left) and I have to say that I think WHO and the mainstream news is trying to shield us from some pretty ominous facts. I think they just don't know what to do, dealing with politics and the fact that we are not prepared...
But, back to dentistry, the subject of this blog. I wonder: what if a pandemic makes its way to MY neighborhood. Will I even have a dental practice? Will my assistant stay home with her kids, my hygienist decide to bag work for a couple months, and do I even want to sit there like an idiot happily working in spit like nothing has changed? So, I went to the American Dental Association website and it had zero info that applied to these particular questions. (I know, they didn't have much time, like the rest of us.) I was referred to CDC's site and info on Health Care workers but, hey, we're not like a doc or nurse who can walk into the room donning N-95 mask, gloves, goggles, coveralls, write a few things on the chart and hightail it OUT of there. We're a little more like the ER, swimming in bodily fluids and getting up close and personal. Dentistry is, as we say in the law, sui generis.
So, first there is the issue of how we are going to pay everyone that works in the dental office with no money coming in (we aren't) and the equipment loans to pay, insurance, mortgage, and all that, if we are closed for a while. The other big one is this: When we are closed, what are my patients going to do when their face swells up with an abscess (www.abscessed-tooth.com) or when their tooth fractures and it's cutting their tongue? For this, I had an idea. What about a site addressing what a person at home can do in an emergency? "When the Dentist Office is Closed," something like that? And how much can I just tell people over the Internet?
Well, I don't practice dentistry over the Internet. First of all, I have a license to practice in one state only, and secondly, well, there isn't, as we say in the law, a doctor-patient relationship formed when someone reads info on a website. Thank God for that, since I do like to know who I'm treating. The sites are informational only, and the last time I looked the First Amendment was intact, medical information, opinions, etc. not being nearly enough to infer/confer a duty. Maybe a moral duty to be truthful and helpful, but that's as far as it goes. No legal duty but just the right to free speech. Seems we need that moral or ethical duty when we write on the internet though. Life is more than selling and so is dentistry.
So, I can tell people to go ahead and file their broken tooth with a nail file? That they should put a little kit together with amoxicillin in case of tooth abscesses, maybe talk to their dentist about their particular mouth and what they might need. Maybe some cement for that crown that keeps popping off with a little lesson in how to get it back on without a major mess? Most dentists would look at the patient like they were over the edge, but I'll bet they would be happy to help. Most of them would.
I already thought about this a bit back when I created www.n-95mask.com a site describing the different kinds of facemasks and how not all of them work for influenza, a tiny little monster that is not filtered out by just any old mask. Not all masks are created equal! In the dental office we use a good quality "procedure mask" and that works fine for our purposes: Hiv, hepatitis, blood splatter, saliva. Some viruses are bloodborne. Influenza virus is airborne (and who knows what else-borne) and that's a different story.
But Enough flu talk for now. I am about to tackle a new subject. Hum, tooth decay, amalgam vs. "white" fillings, or TMJ Dysfunction. What to do next? Life goes on...

Welcome to my Dentistry Blog! Dental Smarts

Greetings and Welcome to the Dental Smarts Blog, companion to www.DentalSmarts.com a series of web sites about dentistry. The first ten sites have been on the Internet for a month or so and it is amazing to see the number of people who log on.
The busiest one is www.impactedwisdomtooth.com. I suspect that's because the 17-19 year-olds, who actually have impacted wisdom teeth, and who are facing the oral surgeon soon, tend to use search engines first when looking for answers.
I have been a general dentist for what seems like forever and an attorney and member of the Pennsylvania Bar since 1983. I teach law and ethics, practice managemen, etc. to dental students and maintain a general dental practice.
My first love is, and has always been, dentistry, and my first obsession these days is the Internet, so the dental sites are a natural for me. Lack of talent for web design has not stopped me. No doubt, my simplistic Microsoft Publisher sites are a plus. Clean code is always good in SEO land. Now a blog? I'll try to keep the subject dental and hope that it's interesting to at least a few people. Okay, let's see how it goes!