Question

This assignment must be completed on a Word Document and submitted. All questions related to the case study must be answered completely in order to receive full credit. This case study assesses SLO #2: "On completion of this course, student will describe steps taken to prevent and manage medical emergencies in the dental office."

You have just seated your patient to have a tooth prepared for a crown. It has already been a hectic morning and the dentist has urged you to hurry up and get the patient ready for local anesthetic because he is running behind schedule and has a lunch meeting. To save a few steps, you decided to bring the patients chart in after you seated her. The dentist enters the operatory right behind you and administers local anesthetic, and you sit down to assist on the procedure.

Midway through the procedure, you notice the patient appears pale and sweaty, and becomes anxious in the chair. The patient seems confused and states she is dizzy. Answer the following questions in short paragraphs:

What type of medical distress is your patient most likely experiencing and how should you proceed?

Describe the preventive measures you skipped and how this impacted the patient, the procedure and the schedule for the morning.

Your patient has not responded well to the initial response and is now unconscious. What action must be taken by you and the entire office staff? What role will each staff member play in response to this emergency?

Answer 1

1) Patient will be most likely experiencing a drug interaction with the local anesthetic agent or an allergic reaction as the nurse has skipped the step of assessing the patient chart.

Nurse should immediately inform the doctor, check the patient's chart to rule out any drug interaction or allergic reaction, continuously monitor vital signs, administer emergency medication to revert back the condition.

2) Preventive measures which were skipped were

- To monitor vital signs prior to procedure

- To collect patient history, for the medications which the patient is on, which will prevent drug interactions.

- To rule out any allergic reactions

- Give psychological support and explanation of procedure to the patient, to prevent anxiety during procedure.

- Monitor age, height, weight for correct medication dose administration.

3) After the patient is unconscious

- Notify to other health team members

- let the family know

- Document error and report it to hospital safety commiittee

- All the staff members should handle the situation calmly, without hiding anything.