Risk Management and Endodontics

Doug Kase will be presenting on risk management issues in Endodontics.

THERE ARE TWO SIDES to every story, two peas in a pod, and it still takes two to tango. So with the word two in mind, our office has two philosophies when it comes to endodontics.

First, we have always thought that one of the best ways to help our referrers is to TEACH them to do ENDONONTIC TREATMENT as we do it.

Now to our philosophy number two: to teach you WHEN to REFER. Providing the best care possible for the patient is intimately tied to doing good acceptable endodontics. Thus case selection is paramount.

I have had the opportunity over the past years of doing professional review to defend colleagues of mine. In all cases there is one common line in the bill of particulars that plays the same tune: failure to refer to a specialist. Now of course there are plenty of clinical circumstances in which bad things happen to practitioners with good intentions. But when an endodontic case fails because a dentist missed a canal or because a calcification made a canal unobtainable and a specialist retreats successfully, failure to refer becomes a more pertinent issue and more difficult to defend. It goes back to that raised bar I talked about earlier. Your standard of care has to be the same as that of the specialist you might eventually refer to. Please understand that I am clearly not telling my loyal readers to refer every case to your friendly neighborhood endodontist, although that would a home run, but use your best judgment.

This Course is Good for 2 ADA CE Credits.

• Light food and refreshments will be served.