My first surgery during Corona (Part 5)

A message from Dr. Ziv Simon

 

 

March 20, 2020

 

Dear friend,

It's Friday and I hope you are in good spirits. Even if the week was hard and stressful, you deserve to let go and take a break from all of that.

Take a deep breath or two.

You did everything you could do this week. Now let go and we go back to the battle field on Monday. I will meet you at the front. 

After 5 days, I already made a few interesting observations about the dental field at this time and what the focus should be on. I didn't get to it during the last webinar. It's maturing in my mind and I will share it once it's ready. 

I did my first surgery during Corona time this week. 

It was an emergency extraction of an upper canine. Here is the cross section from the CT scan.

Severe palatal resorption with pulpitis and acute pain. This fell under the emergency category and I executed an extraction and bone grafting.

Honestly, there was something different in the air just before the procedure. I went into the operatory and did my "Time-out protocol" (let me know if you're not familiar with that. Every dentist in our community must know this).

Since it was in the esthetic zone I recommended a socket shield technique to preserve the buccal plate. 

I spoke to my patient openly about the Corona pandemic. He had zero concern and just wanted to have this tooth removed ASAP.

Honestly, I felt slightly tense.

I connected with the emotion and wondered: why did I feel tense? 

I've done this procedure countless times. I am using universal precautions. I'm all gowned up, covered , shielded, not an inch of skin exposed (including my ears).

I anesthetized the patient and went back to my office. 

I connected with the slight "mind-itch" I was feeling.

I was not afraid of contracting Corona. I was protected. I had a competent assistant with me (Jose). I had all the tools and materials I needed. The patient was easy and grateful.

The slight nervousness was purely irrational. 

But then I got it. I felt adrenaline.

An adrenaline surge happens at the time of danger (fight or flight reaction). Your heart rate goes up, you feel it in every part of your body.

But adrenaline is also felt when you're excited. It's the exact same feeling that takes over you when you are emotionally and physically satisfied. When you had a great experience or anticipating something amazing. You feel "pumped".

Same body chemistry but different mind interpretation. Interesting.

What I felt was excitement about going back and doing what I love - Surgery.

The sensation lingered for a few more minutes and passed.

I went in there. Did a socket shield and a bone graft. The tooth was ankylosed which I expected. The whole procedure was captured by my 4K video camera and I'll share this with you in the future.

I just spoke to him and he is feeling very well. He thanked me for seeing him before the lockdown that was announced  last night. 

You will have to provide emergency treatments including surgery.

We are doctors and it is our moral obligation to help patients even when it's challenging and maybe scary.

You don't want to postpone extracting infected teeth.

These turn into a facial space infections and the patient ends up in the emergency room. That will put an extra burden on hospitals. You are taking the load of them while they are combating Corona.

This is a global joint effort. We all do our part.

I am proud of you for playing an important role in this war on Corona.

You too are a dentist vs. Corona.

Did you know that doctors are less prone to infections? Doctors work at an intimate distance from patients. Intuitively they should have more infections but in reality they don't.

I'm not going to get into explaining this phenomenon right here and I'm sure that some would disagree.

The doctor who puts his life at risk treating the sick and the contagious is not scared. 

The doctor's mind is focused on the cure and not the disease. We do what we do best. It's not just the Hippocratic oath. Hippocrates died at the old age of 90. Not too many people lived that long in those days.

The doctors always have the love and support of everybody else. I believe that this in part explains the resilience. Getting love and appreciation from so many people does make a difference. I don't understand the mechanisms but smarter people than me have theories that I will be happy to share in the future.

In Israel, where I'm from, the whole country stopped at the same time and started clapping and applauding doctors. Almost 7 million people were clapping at the same time in appreciation for doctors saving lives. 

Please see the video here. Check it out now or later but promise me you will.

When you watch it, imagine these people are clapping for you.

You are a doctor and you are a part of this global effort to fight Corona. Get the energy from this video. It's only 1 minute long. 

If you need to perform emergency surgery:

Use precautions. Make sure it's a true emergency that can't wait. Use best practices. You need the same calm, focus and game plan for your surgeries. The same as you need for dealing with the Corona pandemic.

I will leave you with a good thought before the weekend.

Ready?

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Dentistry will come back in a big way. When it comes back, you will be booming and you must prepare for it now. 

How? I will share the roadmap and what you must to do to be ready when we are back at full capacity.

In the meanwhile, rest your body and mind. 

You went through a lot this week.

You handled things beautifully and deserve the applause.

I will talk to you next week.

Stay strong!

Ziv.

PS

Here's the link to the video you must watch. You can close your eyes and listen to the applause. It's for you.