It is the festival of lights and crackers in India this month. The whole nation is lit up in an interesting fashion of bedazzling radiance and illumination with fireworks containing mini explosives! The other day, while in a discussion with fellow DR team members, we stumbled upon some explosive situations which can occur in a dental setup. If not handled with care, these situations can backfire intensely, causing loss of years of goodwill and faith of patients in practice.

Let’s explore some of these crackling mini explosives!

You all must have heard about oral infections advancing to osteomyelitis or cellulitis or even myofascial space infection, but did you know it can also cause a brain abscess?! A brain abscess is an abscess within the brain caused by inflammation and collection of infected material from local or remote infectious sources. The skull bones are non-yielding in nature and cannot expand to accumulate the abscess which causes pressure on the surrounding brain tissue. This pressure can block the blood vessels preventing oxygen from reaching the brain, which results in brain damage and can also prove fatal. Imagine a situation like this in your clinic. Like it happened in the cases reported in literature!

We are well aware of medical emergencies in the dental clinic but we ignore a basic fact – medical emergencies can also occur in kids! And if it does, the situation can definitely get explosive because a child is precious for every parent. Most suggestions for treating emergencies in recently published literature are for adult patients. Since children are not exactly miniature adults, it is necessary to modify the approach.

Also read: Diagnosing domestic violence based on head & neck trauma: Dentists’ role

These are however rare, one in many situations. Let me talk about common complaints which occur often and can make any dentist break into a sweat! Pain after RCT and loose dentures after prosthesis delivery! Endo & Prostho is the bread & butter of dentistry and even the best of clinicians face situations like these which disappoints not only the patients but also the dentist himself/herself. Learning how to overcome RCT failures and manage resorbed edentulous ridges can save us from such embarrassments.

Changing the scenario from patient based intensive situations to dentist oriented ghastly happenings is – fraud by one’s own team member. A fraudster maybe found within the dentist’s clinic staff, or a supplier, or even a corporate employee. Over 1/3rd of dental practices have experienced fraud at least once, distressingly only few dentists are properly trained or equipped to prevent it.

Looking at the larger picture on a national level, the discrepancy between urban and rural health care is an obvious frightful situation, even though rural population forms a larger percentage of population. An attempt is being made to control the problem and level the field in care. Rural Healthcare Training Centers or RHTCs is an innovative idea for such rural areas.

Happy to share the link of an informative video on our YouTube channel by Dr. Akshay Rathi on bonding of aligner attachments. Attachments in aligner therapy help to improve the efficacy and efficiency of the desired tooth movements. They need to be bonded with the help of a template before the start of the first aligner further explained by Dr. Rathi in a short video.

Also read: ‘I’m-planted’ 4000 years ago! - A history of dental implants before titanium

So handle these crackles and let the light shine through! Here’s wishing all our dear readers a very happy Diwali from the entire team!