DDS and Dental Hygiene Clinics Reopening
Starting on Monday, July 6, we welcome our dental and dental hygiene students back to their clinical education. This marks a major milestone in the school’s return from the COVID-19 set back. We reopened safely in May with faculty and residents treating patients and are ahead of our original opening plan. We have instituted state-of-the-art safety protocols including fit testing all providers for N95 masks. We likely are one, if not the only, school to fit test providers. Other schools have gone to KN95 masks without fit testing. Our relationship with our hospital leadership has helped us immensely. Our patients are returning and as you can see in the chart below, patient visits per day are now about 50% of pre-COVID-19 levels. Having all of this positive news does not mean we can ease up. We still have hurdles.
Patient visits per day from January 6 to July 1, 2020. Normal daily visits are around 450-500. We are now having 200-250 per day.
We have to do more with less due to staff and adjunct faculty cuts caused by financial considerations. We face some scheduling volume due to physical clinic limitations and need to keep safety as our primary priority. We still do not fully understand how patients will react to coming back to our clinics, but so far we have seen very positive signs our patients are ready to return.
We are entering a new cone of uncertainty on solving our challenges. If you recall when the pandemic hit, the uncertainty of how to proceed was crushing and everyone expected answers immediately. We navigated through those early curriculum unknowns and we adapted to providing only urgent care to our patients. I will state that being Flexible is still too Rigid. We will have to be fluid as we constantly adapt to this new phase of uncertainty.
Now in the month of July, a month we have usually taken some break time, everyone will be coming back to work. The faculty and staff need to come prepared to fill in the needed duties. Do not be shy about asking what else you can do to help. Students need to maintain a professional approach to learning and helping their classmates and their class as a whole to be successful.
Please observe safe practices to prevent virus spread. Wear a mask, six feet distancing, hand hygiene, and stay home if you are not well.