The other day I had a young patient with severe anxiety in my office for a new patient examination. When the young child entered the waiting room, they were tightly clinging to their mother. Upon first impression, our pediatric dental team was not too optimistic that we were going to be able to even look in this young patient’s mouth. Following our introduction, my team and I started the unchartered path of attempting to make the patient comfortable enough to trust and allow us to perform a simple intra oral exam. With our young patient in the fetal position in the corner of my operatory, we engaged in a trial-and-error approach to break through their anxiety. During an inquisitive discussion with the mother, she mentioned that her child loves the show Paw Patrol… and that gave us an opening. Up for the challenge, my dental assistant and I proceeded to find Paw Patrol on the television and within minutes we were on the ground next to our young patient singing. Having developed some trust and with a little encouragement, we were able to complete a full intra-oral exam. Although we would have preferred to have our young patient sit in the dental chair, it was clear that was not going to take place. My dental assistant and I did what we needed to do to complete the intra-oral exam successfully. Thinking outside the box allowed the four of us to be victorious. There are many situations in dentistry where, as dental care providers, we are required to break from conventional thinking to better treat our patients. Our profession has advanced and evolved due to innovative thinking that leads to research and clinical advancements. We are all taught the Gold Standards in dental school but when we get out into practice, we realize that these methods are not always the answer. Exploring new approaches is not always an easy process. We must be careful to find new methods that are safe to use on our patients, have validity and research to back their use. It is important that we stay open minded as dentists while critically analyzing the validity of new methods. We all know there is a lot of snake oil in our profession, and our job is to use our education to avoid them to the best of our abilities. Thinking outside of the box requires creativity, critical thinking, and common sense. We all need to explore different approaches in our practices in order to better treat our patients.
About the Editor:
Dr David Farkouh is a pediatric dentist working in private practice in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is on staff at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and is the Pediatric Dentistry Editor for Oral Health.
