Listen to that voice inside your head! We all get those clues and a bad feeling in your gut when you see a red flag patient. The challenge is being receptive to this feeling and acting upon it tactfully. I share 2 examples of encounters where I either ignored the alarm bells, and 1 scenario recently where I avoided a disaster.
https://youtu.be/UBvJxhgzQp0
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Highlights of this episode:
1:34 'Alarm Bells Scenarios'
2:20 Case No. 1 (Extraction on a 78-year-old patient)
7:47 Case No.2 (Heat Burn on Patient's inner cheek/lip)
9:20 Warning Signs
If you loved this episode, you will like 12 Rules for Dentistry
Click below for full episode transcript:
Opening Snippet: Hello, Protruserati. I'm Jaz Gulati and welcome to one of my ramblings, okay? We're gonna do this as an interference cast. And I'm gonna teach you a few lessons that I've learned before, I guess I've learned them in very traumatic ways.
Jaz’s Introduction:When you make mistake and think, Wow, I never want to make this mistake ever again. And then you want to share it with everyone so that it helps others too.So the theme of today’s rambling is the following. It’s about listening to that voice that we all have inside of us, during a consultation or during a patient interaction, you know that deafening sound of alarm bells you sometimes get. And yet, for some stupid reason, you might decide to ignore it. Well, today, guys, I’m happy to report that I didn’t fall for it. I heard those bells, loud and clear. And I acted appropriately, and I dodged a bullet. Okay, let me give you the exact example.And in fact, I am going to liken this example to a really significant thing, which I picked up from a book, like one of my favorite books is Outliers by the author Malcolm Gladwell, if you haven’t read Outliers yet, please check it out. It is my all-time favorite book. And I think it’s in chapter seven, where it discusses why aeroplanes fall. It’s a random divergence, I know, but hear me out. Aeroplanes fall not because the engine has an error. And that’s it. And that’s why airplanes fall and that could happen. That’s rare.‘Alarm Bells Scenarios’Airplanes actually fall, when they do fall, when there’s an issue, a big problems do happen in aviation when lots of little things, lots of minor things that all happen at once. And they usually surrounding communication, and teamwork so it’s accumulation of all those minor errors that would result in it. So for example, the pilot was hung over, right? That’s one thing, right? And then the pilot was working with a co-pilot, and they’ve never worked together before, okay? And the guy who was supposed to do the final checks on the aircraft vehicle, had COVID or something, and he couldn’t come into work that day. And therefore, all of those little things combined and bad weather that day, is the reason that the airplane fell not because of one big error, it’s accumulation of little errors.Main Episode:So what lessons can we learn in dentistry? Well, think of those little errors lining up in your patient in front of you. So let me give an example.Case No. 1 (Extraction on a 78-year-old patient)I saw a 78 year old patient today who was referred to me for some surgical extractions, okay? Age doesn’t bother me too much. Yes, we know sometimes it can be more difficult to extract and we need to take care, but it’s a medical history that really bothered me. So let me tell you the accumulation of minor errors. So error number one, there was no up to date medical history, it was last filled-in in 2019, okay? So I was like, oh, god dammit, why is this patient referred to me without a medical history?Error number two, he comes in and I get an update of medical history from him. And he conveniently has forgotten his sort of long list of medications and he’s going by memory, okay,
