The Dental Board of California is in support of dentists administering the COVID19 Vaccine after proper continuing education has been taken.
Vaccination have not been within the scope of practice of dentists historically, therefore you do not see vaccinations for Hepatitis or the Measles in a private practice dental office. Due to the current state of emergency, the Director of the California Department of Consumer Affairs has waived a code that prohibits the administration of the COVID19 vaccine by dentists if they take necessary continuing education courses, comply with federal and state record keeping of the administration of the vaccine, and administer the vaccine in line with the FDA approval for emergency usage. Dentists are more than onboard with helping during this world crisis. What are the hang ups? Communication. How do we volunteer at centers to help? Where are these centers? Is there enough vaccine? Can we open more centers? Should there not be a nerdy tech guy in this great city of San Francisco making a website to organize our healthcare providers volunteer efforts? I think so.
I think the biggest sticking point, once again, is the actual management of the distribution of the vaccine. The continuing education course takes dentists about an hour or two to complete. Dentists are well versed in giving injections as we do so in peoples mouths every day. (These injections being much more complicated than an intramuscular injection into the deltoid for the COVID19 vaccine.). Finally, I believe dentists are more than willing to help and get involved in any way that they can to help us all get through this pandemic and return to a state of social normalcy.
Have you gotten your vaccination? Hopefully if you are fortunate enough to be in one of the first phases you have scheduled your appointment. Do you live in a different state with different dental board regulations — I would love to hear from you and your perspective on what the hold up is in getting dentists the ability to administer the vaccine to increase speed of distribution. As always, feel free to email me at askoulasdds@gmail.com