Professional Courtesy: The End is Near by Dr. Thomas Giacobbi

Professional Courtesy:  

by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, editorial director, Dentaltown magazine


Last month we marked the anniversary of closing our office in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and with the continued rollout of vaccination, it’s time to look for the end of this dark tunnel.

There have already been several threads online discussing staff acceptance of vaccine and the appropriate time to return to normal PPE. The U.S. government has committed to purchasing enough doses of vaccine for everyone in the country, but we already know that 100% of the population will not take the vaccine—many in our profession and other health care workers have made the decision not to be vaccinated, which is hard for me to understand when we have been so profoundly challenged by this pandemic. Reaching herd immunity by vaccinating 60–70% of the population is our best hope for extinguishing this virus and the evolution of variants. I see vaccines as our best way out of this pandemic because we cannot continue to live with the current restrictions, and taking the approach of “do nothing and let Mother Nature sort it out” is too dystopian for my tastes.

Current estimates suggest that we could have vaccines on-demand by summer, which means anyone who wants a vaccine can get it. I think for many of us, this will be the turning point for a return to normal life: ditching the mask in the grocery store, getting together with family and friends, and traveling with confidence. One reaction to watch is how the unvaccinated will respond to this milestone: Will they continue to wear masks, attempt to keep people at arm’s length and stay sheltered at home most of the time? I doubt it.

Today we continue to practice these preventive measures because too few people have been vaccinated. Once summer comes, will public events be open to the vaccinated only? It’s a reasonable thought, but people will reject the idea or find a way to fake their vaccination credentials. At the beginning of the pandemic, we stood together as a society facing exposure to a deadly virus, but attitudes will shift when only a small percentage of the population remains vulnerable because they have no immunity to COVID-19.

In our practice, patients are already asking about which members of the team have received the vaccine. I’ve made it clear to the team that their decision regarding the vaccine does not have to be shared with a patient unless they choose to discuss it.

Our reply to anyone who asks about our employees’ vaccination status is a version of: “Everyone on our team who wanted the vaccine has been vaccinated.” (The follow-up when people ask who didn’t get it: “It’s not appropriate to share the personal protected health information of our team.”)

Other approaches include ignoring the question and changing the subject, advising the patient to ask me about it because I got the vaccine and I’m happy to discuss it, or the classic answer-a-question-with-another-question: “Why do you ask?” The latter could lead to a recap of the universal precautions that dental practices have had in place for years—long before coronavirus—to help prevent transmission of viruses and infections.

If society starts to relax this summer, it’s likely you will want to do the same in your practice. Most of the offices in this country will probably have a teammate or two who skipped the vaccine. Moving into this next phase will likely lead to a more voluntary approach to maximum PPE versus “normal and proper” PPE. Could the maximum (N95, face shields, gowns, etc.) become the new standard? Possible, but not likely in my opinion: Dental offices have done an excellent job of proving that they can prevent transmission in a profession bathed in aerosols.

When are you planning to flip the life switch back to the “old normal”? Please share your comments on this article below. You also can reach me by email: tom@dentaltown.com.
 

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