Challenges and Attainable Solutions in Dental Practice During and Post COVID-19

The Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic has altered people's lives in both enormous and small ways. I, myself, have adapted to staying indoors within three to 5 months due to the fright of being infected. Aside from myself, the ones most affected are the healthcare professionals. Especially with dental professionals, dental procedures usually generate blood and saliva droplets that could lead to contagion, which has resulted in the closure of multiple dental clinics. With these, oral health professionals are vulnerable and have a higher risk of transmitting this COVID-19. Significantly, a notable drawback is that dentistry involves the production of contaminated aerosols, which continue to be a significant source of cross-infection.

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Most dental procedures involve aerosols, which increase the chances of cross-contamination of acute respiratory infections. Other than that, dental operatory has more contaminated surfaces, including the dental instruments, the spittoon, doctor stools, and dental chairs and their handles, which are potential sources for transmission. Quality dental treatment may not be achievable without the interference of aerosols in daily dental practice.

Nevertheless, dentists cannot avoid the production of aerosols while providing quality dental treatment, and they can only limit their display by following specific guidelines on urgent/emergency dental care and adhering to stringent protocols.

"However, dental societies and healthcare communities around the globe developed various protocols and algorithms with standard infection control protocols."(Bhumireddy et al., 2021).

Attainable Solutions

To manage these adversities, dental professionals adhere to strict protocols like environmental surface disinfection, compulsory cough etiquette instruction, meticulous hand hygiene, pre-procedural mouth rinse, rubber dam isolation, use of appropriate particulate respirator masks. Moreover, the use of inexpensive high-volume evacuator (HVE) and expensive high-efficiency particulate arrestor (HEPA) filters is highly suggested during and post COVID-19 pandemic (Ge et al.,2020).

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has impaired socio-economic and ethnic disproportions and will undoubtedly languish dental practice globally. With these, I am more inspired to achieve this profession and be more approachable to people's oral healthcare needs and prioritize oral care for groups with high demand.

Moreover, I have learned in dental informatics; It is more vital to introduce virtual consultation using the teledentistry model to benefit society and oral healthcare professionals. With the ongoing pandemic, virtual consultation would be a big help. Also, recently, four billion of the world's population have been fully vaccinated; this is already big and a good sign that the infection rate is declining and a benefit to us student dentists and dental professionals to bring back to our routine.

The present crisis has exposed dental practitioners, and the dental profession could be incorporated into the broader system. As a future dentist myself, these challenges will make me tough, and every adversity, failure, and grief carries the seed of an equal or more significant benefit.

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