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Andy and I were sat in my office (upstairs in the practice) on Wednesday when Lynne (my Assistant PM) came to the door to say that someone had collapsed downstairs.

‘Medical emergencies’ in dental practice have always been a filter or a sieve for the extended abilities of the people who work there.

Look to any practice and ask the guys who the first person they turn to in a medical emergency is and it tells you a lot about the practice.

It’s a pretty good question to ask the first time you go into a practice to help someone, along with “where are your emergency drugs?”

Dealing with medical emergencies is a practised skill, no one was ever born able to do it, they just learned how to do it from doing and thinking and observing and reflecting.

You can learn a lot about medical emergencies just by speaking to people for any length of time about their medical history and how things were managed.

Nowadays I do my ILS (Immediate Life Support) training at the start of February each year but there’s no way that that training lasts throughout the year and one way or another, you have to think about this again from time to time to make sure you’re fit to react when the circumstance arrives.

Dhru Shah and his guys at Dentinal Tubules do some amazing online medical emergency training but that has to be backed up with talking about it seriously as a team, pretty much as often as you get an opportunity to do so.

What happened on Wednesday though was different and a testament to how things are in the practice now.

When Lynne put her head in the door to say that someone had collapsed Andy was gone and down the stairs before I’d hardly got out of my seat. Just as I was about to run out after him I stopped and said to the guys in the office “it’s probably best if I just leave them to it”

I’ve never been in a place like that before, it’s always been me.

A few minutes later when the panic was over I even had the opportunity to chat to the patient who thanked me (for nothing actually) but I was thrilled and somewhat disappointed that the person that people turn to in an emergency is not just me.

Blog Post Number: 1883