Physician Who Wrote The Book On Oral Medicine Supports TEAM 1500 Goals
Dr. Leslie Fang is an advocate of safe, oral sedation dentistry as it is currently taught and regulated by the ADA. He sees no need to change the guidelines as the ADA has proposed. Dr. Fang co-authored one of the bestknown texbooks for dentists, "Principle and Practice of Oral Medicine."
Dr. Fang was not able to participate in the Thursday, January 11th teleconference held by TEAM 1500 to inform dentists about the ADA proposals. But he did send an email containing his thoughts. Here is some of what Dr. Fang had to say:
Dr. Fang was not able to participate in the Thursday, January 11th teleconference held by TEAM 1500 to inform dentists about the ADA proposals. But he did send an email containing his thoughts. Here is some of what Dr. Fang had to say:1. I do believe that sedation dentistry, as it is being practiced under the existiing guidelines, is safe and well thought out.
2. The level of monitoring and the extent to which dentists are taught to manage patients in need of sedation is truly impressive.
3. The fact that more than a million procedures have been safely carried out under the current guidelines is strong vindication of the safety.
4. Depriving patients access to simple oral sedation procedures will greatly hinder access to care for many patients who desperately need dental care.
Dr. Leslie Fang is a physician and PhD in Physiology and Biophysics who teaches at Harvard Medical School. He has an active internal medicine practice at Mass. General Hospital. He is also a member of the DOCS faculty, where he bridges the link between Medicine and Dentistry.
Dr. Leslie Fang is a physician and PhD in Physiology and Biophysics who teaches at Harvard Medical School. He has an active internal medicine practice at Mass. General Hospital. He is also a member of the DOCS faculty, where he bridges the link between Medicine and Dentistry.
Comments of proposed changes to Conscious sedation requirements
January 16, 2007
Dear Sirs,
Fear of the dentist has been a problem that has plagued mankind for thousands of years.
That is the reason that many people do not visit the dentist. When they avoid dental care, the problems naturally get worse and then more extensive and more expensive. That requires more treatment and further compounds the fears. As a result a significant percentage of the population avoids dental care until extraction is required.
For the profession to serve the public it is necessary that we come to grips with this reality and find a way to serve the fearful segment of our population. For many years, dentists have prescribed sedative and tranquilizing drugs for the patient to take at home, prior to visits. There has not been a standard system taught to the average dentist short of extensive IV sedation training programs.
In the last 5-10 years programs have evolved that are designed to teach general practitioners to provide light oral sedation where the patient is able to maintain their own airway with drugs that our medical colleagues have prescribed for unsupervised home use.
Now instead of a patient getting a bottle of 20-30 pills to take at home, we are trained to provide them in the office with professional monitoring with blood pressure and a pulse oximeter.
The record speaks for itself. The systems taught by organizations such as Dentist for oral conscious sedation have been performed tens of thousands of times with an extreme level of safety and enabled tens of thousands of patients to receive the care they want and need. In fact, once many of these patients have been able to get their mouth healthy and they are over the massive fears, they become routine general dental patients that do not continue to need sedation.
I am in favor of raising the standards of care in the profession. As a fellow of the AGD I have documented thousands of hours of CE. But based on the record, attempting to change the standards of education required for OCS and require thousands of dentists to take a program on IV sedation that is excessive for the care to be provided and available in limited locations will go a long way to push dentistry back 20 years and reduce accessibility for millions of Americans.
Sincerely,
Jerry Simon, DDS
1500 Summer Street
Stamford, CT 06905
203 324-6171
jerrysimon@sprynet.com
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Comments of proposed changes to Conscious sedation requirements
January 16, 2007
Dear Sirs,
Fear of the dentist has been a problem that has plagued mankind for thousands of years.
That is the reason that many people do not visit the dentist. When they avoid dental care, the problems naturally get worse and then more extensive and more expensive. That requires more treatment and further compounds the fears. As a result a significant percentage of the population avoids dental care until extraction is required.
For the profession to serve the public it is necessary that we come to grips with this reality and find a way to serve the fearful segment of our population. For many years, dentists have prescribed sedative and tranquilizing drugs for the patient to take at home, prior to visits. There has not been a standard system taught to the average dentist short of extensive IV sedation training programs.
In the last 5-10 years programs have evolved that are designed to teach general practitioners to provide light oral sedation where the patient is able to maintain their own airway with drugs that our medical colleagues have prescribed for unsupervised home use.
Now instead of a patient getting a bottle of 20-30 pills to take at home, we are trained to provide them in the office with professional monitoring with blood pressure and a pulse oximeter.
The record speaks for itself. The systems taught by organizations such as Dentist for oral conscious sedation have been performed tens of thousands of times with an extreme level of safety and enabled tens of thousands of patients to receive the care they want and need. In fact, once many of these patients have been able to get their mouth healthy and they are over the massive fears, they become routine general dental patients that do not continue to need sedation.
I am in favor of raising the standards of care in the profession. As a fellow of the AGD I have documented thousands of hours of CE. But based on the record, attempting to change the standards of education required for OCS and require thousands of dentists to take a program on IV sedation that is excessive for the care to be provided and available in limited locations will go a long way to push dentistry back 20 years and reduce accessibility for millions of Americans.
Sincerely,
Jerry Simon, DDS
1500 Summer Street
Stamford, CT 06905
203 324-6171
jerrysimon@sprynet.com
Reply to this
To be clear on this, Jerry's last paragraph states, in part, "...attempting to change the standards of education required for OCS and require thousands of dentists to take a program on IV sedation...", the proposed educational requirements do not place any requirements on a specific number of dentists. The proposed guidelines do suggest, depending on how you read them, that there is no grandfathering of existing dentists who have had training under the old guidelines, but this is not found in the educational requirements.
Also, minimal sedation as defined does not require IV training and moderate sedation by enteral route only does not require training to competency in IV techniques but do require IV access during the training program only (the recommendations also do not specify who must establish the IV acess, the student or the instructor). I point this out only to help those who will argue before the ADA and the state boards so they will not will not look foolish because of misreading the proposals and get sy=tuck in a semantics arguement distracting from the real issue, that is that the current guidelines have proven safe and there is no evidence, that I am aware of, that suggests a more stringint rule should be established. That being said, the proposals are unwarranted and throw up barriers to patient access including the limited ability to get this education with a 1:1 teacher ratio.
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excellent letter!
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