VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — If you’ve been waiting to get your teeth cleaned or a filling replaced, there's good news: Dentists in Virginia are now allowed to treat non-emergency cases, but going to the dentist might be a little different than it usually is.
Denise Middleton, the Practice Administrator for Beach Dental Center in Virginia Beach, said staff is doing more "housekeeping," but doctors are no stranger to infection control.
She said they already wear face masks and sanitize equipment and rooms between patients, and this isn’t the first time dentists have faced a pandemic.
“After the AIDS and HIV outbreak, the dental world changed dramatically as far as infection control to start with,” she said.
Middleton said her team is following guidelines handed down by dental associations to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and there are a lot of things in there that they’re already doing.
“In the dental world, we deal with aerosols. It’s not the same as going to the doctor’s office and having a wound dressed. Everything we do... practically everything we do is done with water and air," Middleton said. “We’re used to infection control, we’re used to wearing masks and gloves – maybe not the N95s that we are now – but we’re used to doing those things already.”
But Middleton said there is one thing they're having a problem with: finding personal protective equipment (PPE).
"I think the biggest problem for us is securing the PPE that we need," she said.
She said when the pandemic first hit, Beach Dental and a lot of other practices sent their face masks to hospitals that were in desperate need of PPE.
“A lot of dental offices really did send most – or some people, all – of their PPE over," Middleton said. "Which it should, that’s life-saving and we understand that, but that’s been a little bit of our challenge.”
She said the Department of Health gave dentists a few N95 respirators to help.
Staff is also taking steps to reduce the spread of germs.
She said teams will frequently sanitize doorknobs and light switches, and patients will have to wait in their car for their appointment.
“And we will get them directly from the parking lot so we don’t have a waiting room full of people,” she said. “You don’t have magazines out there anymore; you don’t have coffee or water for the patients out there anymore."
They will take the temperature of every employee and patient who enters the practice. All hallways are going one way, and front desk workers are wearing masks and gloves.
“It makes you feel like you’re not being quite as customer service savvy as you’d like to be, but it’s to protect everyone,” Middleton said. “I’ve been in the dental field for more than 40 years. I thought when all the HIV thing started years and years ago, I thought that was the end-all-to-be-all for the challenges, but this is way beyond what I ever imagined.”