Dental Explorer Post #1902 is now accepting students ages 14-20 who are interested in a career in the dental field (assistant, hygienist, lab tech, dentist). Call the CSDS at 598-5161 or email to sharynm@qwestoffice.net to obtain an application. Meetings are the second Wednesday of the month during the school year.
As of January 31, private-sector employers, including some dental offices, will be required to display the new employee rights poster issued by the National Labor Relations Board. Like most posters related to employee issues, this poster can be downloaded for free from https://www.nlrb.gov/poster. The poster must be displayed in a prominent location for all employees to view - if the dental practice meets the requirements. See the Winter 2012 issue of the CDA Journal for more information or call the CSDS at 598-5161.
Dental Emergencies
When a patient experiences a dental emergency, adherence to several steps should result in quicker care and relief:
If the patient currently sees a dentist, s/he needs to call his or her own personal dentist. Dentists are required by
the ADA Code to provide for patients of record in a dental emergency. Therefore, dentists have made prior arrangements to care
for patients in an emergency. Most dentists belong to a call group, meaning that they trade call with other dentists.
Therefore, a caller may be directed to contact the dentist who is on call.
If a person with a dental emergency does not currently have a dentist of record, s/he should call the CSDS and should punch
in the correct number to hear a listing of dentists who accept dental emergencies. The list is broken down by
specialties and by time periods. Patients should expect to be charged for emergency care.
Another option for quick relief is to present to a hospital emergency room or after-hours care clinic, where a physician
may prescribe medication until the patient can be seen by a dentist. The patient should expect to pay for these services.
If the dental emergency requires an oral surgeon for immediate care, the hospital emergency room personnel will call
the oral surgeon who is on call. Patients will be charged for these services.
These problems require an immediate Emergency Room visit:
Breathing difficulties
Fractured jaws
Loss of consciousness
These problems require a dentist's attention:
Broke a tooth
Badly chipped tooth/tooth is bleeding (not the gums)
Bumped a tooth hard; it used to hurt; it got better, but now it hurts again
Chipped a tooth
Knocked out a tooth
Loosened a tooth, pushed in or hanging out of position
Have pain with swelling
Swelling of gums around teeth
Swelling around the wisdom teeth
Swelling around the eye
Swelling in the roof of the mouth
Swelling in the jaw
Experiencing toothache
These problems require a dentist's attention but not immediate unless accompanied by pain:
Treat before pain develops or your bite changes.
Broken or lost crown or cap
Broken or lost filling
Broken denture or appliance
What should I do for a toothache?
This pain can be relatively simple or quite complicated.
It can be simple because sometimes by biting or chewing, a person can tell which tooth is causing pain. More often
than not, biting does not identify the offending tooth; and the pain can be referred to a distant location like the
ear, the chin, the corner of the jaw, or even one side of the throat (the same side the pain is on). If a tooth is
hypersensitive to thermal stimulation like hot or cold food or drinks or if spontaneous pain from the mouth occurs
"out of the blue" or if tooth pain awakens you from sleep, then you most likely have a toothache and should see a
dentist as soon as possible.
