Pandemic tales

I never thought I would ever see the day. As the SARS-COV-2 pandemic began to sweep through the UK, with the picture changing almost hourly, my general dental practice was ordered to close. My first priority was to try to keep the business afloat, with difficult decisions having to be made in a very short timeframe. The other challenge was to attempt to ‘look after’ the patients of the practice who were experiencing pain or who had other dental problems. The woefully inadequate provision made by the local health board, and the ridiculous and unbelievable instruction from the Chief Dental Officers to adopt an ‘AAA protocol’ (Advice, Analgesics and Antimicrobials), casting aside good clinical practice and ignoring all worldwide attempts at antibiotic guardianship, did not help matters. Patients suffered, teeth were lost needlessly, and dental professionals were left impotent because they were not able to care for their patients.

In July, we were allowed to reopen when ‘AAA’ metamorphosized into ‘PPE’ and ‘AGP.’ The dental team had to operate dressed like a cross between Darth Vader and Neil Armstrong. As fellow Editorial Board Member, Ken Hemmings, warned in one of the highly successful Dental Update webinars held during lockdown, doing intricate procedures is virtually impossible and how he was correct! At that time, my patients were understanding, kind, supportive and concerned for our team's wellbeing. Support for our profession in the national media was unprecedently high because it seemed that our patients had realized what good we do for them when we were not there!

Lockdown was no holiday. I had students to support. My MSc students had to change their final year project from a clinical audit to a systematic review, and my undergraduates seemed to be receptive to having various e-learning techniques practised on them when all teaching went online. We tried to make the best of the situation.

Times of adversity present an opportunity to reflect both professionally and personally. It also shows others in their true light, those who can be trusted and sadly, those who cannot; those who are professional and those who are not. These lessons are invaluable, and 1 year on, while we still struggle with enhanced PPE, there is hope that with the magnificent vaccine rollout, things will return to ‘normal’ soon.