Zoom Out: Big Picture Dentistry for Complex Patients

Diagnosis, treatment planning, and management of patients with complex health needs

The patients we encounter in day-to-day practice are becoming more medically complex. Patients are living longer, but often with the burden of more chronic disease and more medical intervention. Recognising this complexity and working through it to provide safe and appropriate treatment can present a challenge for the dental clinician. How do we know what’s relevant? And how do we keep up when the medicine is evolving so quickly?

This course aims to provide dental practitioners with key skills to accurately assess and integrate medical information into dental care. The presentation will feature practical information, simple templates for communicating with medical practitioners, and real life patient cases, which can be applied to your practise to optimise patient safety and overall health outcomes.

There will be opportunities to ask questions of the presenter during and after the presentation, and group discussion is welcomed.

Dinner and refreshments included with your registration.

Course Topics:

• Effective medical history taking: gathering and sorting medical information to identify key issues affecting dental treatment;
• Providing dental assessments for complex medical procedures: what is required, how do I word my letter of dental clearance, and what if I can’t make the patient dentally fit?
• Communicating with medical and allied health professionals about the dental treatment plan;
• Diagnostic red herrings: when systemic medical issues masquerade as dental problems.

Learning Objectives:

On successful completion of this course, attendees should be able to:

• Gather an appropriate and detailed patient medical history;
• Analyse a patient’s medical history to establish “red flags” that may impact on safe provision of treatment;
• Correspond effectively and professionally with medical colleagues to support patient management decisions; and
• Recognise when patient complexity is beyond the scope of care of a general dental practitioner.