Assessment of the approach to managing medical emergencies during dental procedures

This study aims to investigate the knowledge of dental interns and post-graduated doctors regarding dental emergencies and their occurrence in the clinic and examine the doctors' ability to intervene in these emergencies.

Note that, 150 dental interns and 101 post-graduated doctors were surveyed with sixteen questions regarding their knowledge and experience with syncope, orthostatic hypotension, myocardial infarction, angina pectoris, asthma, and anaphylactic shock. Also, post-graduate doctors answered nine additional questions about their emergency response capabilities.

This study found that interns and doctors exhibited similar knowledge about emergencies. Nonetheless, the count of dental interns encountering emergencies is relatively limited. Syncope was the most frequently encountered condition (61.8%). Doctors' increase in years of experience correlated positively with a higher rate of intervention in epilepsy, orthostatic hypotension, and anaphylactic shock (p = 0.001, 0.024, and 0.02, respectively). The ability to check the carotid pulse and to perform intramuscular injections was high in post-graduated doctors (90.09% and 81.2%, respectively).

Although interns believe their knowledge about emergencies to be sufficient, their intervention skills may need to be improved due to the low frequency of encounters. After graduation, their inability to intervene adequately during emergencies in the clinic can lead to fatal consequences. The lack of improvement in doctors' knowledge and intervention abilities with experience could be attributed to insufficient training after completing their formal education. To prevent such scenarios, regular training sessions should be provided to interns and doctors, focusing on the emergencies they may encounter.