ADA Guides Member Dentists Through COVID-19 Ethical Storm Guenter Jonke, DMD, FACD Kristi Soileau, DDS, M Ed, MSHCE, FACD
Dr. Jonke practices general dentistry in Stony Brook, New York and is a member of the American Dental Association Council on Ethics, Bylaws and Judicial Affairs and a Fellow of the American College of Dentists.
Dr. Soileau practices periodontics in New Orleans, Louisiana, is a Diplomate, American Board of Periodontology and a Fellow of the American College of Dentists
Pandemic Panic
A
s we begin COVID19 vaccinations throughout the world in record time, we pause to reflect on what has transpired in the dental profession over the past 10 months. Dentistry has consistently been presented with ethical dilemmas throughout these challenging times of COVID-19, necessitating a close look at the historical timeline of the demands and the responses with which the profession has weathered during this ethical storm.
Dentists strive to serve the best interest of their patients’ dental needs, as the ADA’s over 150-year-old Principles of Ethics & Code of Professional Conduct states should be done. Yet in mid-March, when the realization that a worldwide pandemic of unknown duration was impacting the relationship between patient and caregiver, dentists were told to close their offices except to treat only those
Journal of the American College of Dentists
patients in acute, emergent situations,1,2 leaving the vast majority of patients of record without preventive and/or restorative dental care for an indefinite period. Dentists followed the orders implemented in their states but were troubled about whether this was right for patients. Unease mounted as offices were shut down except for seeing what individual dentists considered to be the emergent case, second guessing the nuances of the imposed moratorium. Staff became either redundant or, at best, needed minimally. Questions arose about whether it would be right or prudent to relieve them of their positions, and in some instances, staff left their jobs-and the profession for good out of fear of the transmissibility of COVID-19.
The ADA’s Guiding Light Throughout the pandemic, the ADA Health Policy Institute kept members abreast of many ethics and other professionally-related information, such as staffing, PPE availability and other data.3 Rather than leaving dentists to interpret the CDC’s initial guidelines as to what constitutes “emergent care,” the ADA was in communication with the CDC to ensure that dentistry had a voice. The ADA became the source for the dental profession providing information on what constituted a dental emergen-
36
