Medical and Pharmacology | Human diseases and medical and dental emergencies | Medical emergencies: Basic life support

Medical Emergencies: Basic Life Support
Session Overview
Description
This session will look at the relevance of medical emergencies to the dental practitioner and describe the management of a seriously ill patient.

Learning Objectives
By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Recognise a seriously ill patient
• Provide first response level care to a seriously ill patient
• Diagnose and effectively manage a patient who requires basic life support (BLS)

The dental practitioner treats thousands of patients during their career and performs millions of different procedures.

Changes in patient demographics means the dental practitioner of the future will be faced with patients who:

• Are living longer
• Present increasing number of medical diagnoses
• Are taking an increasing number of medications

The General Dental Council (GDC) expects that every dental practitioner is capable of recognising and managing patients who become seriously ill during their visit to the dental practice. As a consequence, the United Kingdom Resuscitation Council provides guidance as to the level and care expected from the dental team [1].

Luckily for the dental team, reported emergencies are rare in the dental surgery. Girdler [2] reported them occurring at 0.7 cases per dentist per year, whereas Atherton [3] estimated they would occur once every four years of practice.

However, for the patient who is unfortunate to suffer one of these events, the statistics are irrelevant and they are only concerned with your ability to manage each event effectively.