Apr 8, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected how everyone carries out their business, and that includes dental professionals—especially when you consider how much infection control factors into our work. Andrew and Michelle had the opportunity this week to speak to a dentist whose own office has been impacted.
Brian Baliwas, DDS is a cosmetic dentist based out of San Francisco. Known as the SFDentalNerd, Dr. Baliwas works for Union Square Dental Group and specializes in the elective procedures that have been scaled back as the COVID-19 pandemic intensifies and social distancing measures increase.
In this episode, Dr. Baliwas discusses how the pandemic has changed how Dr. Baliwas’s team and their patients approach dental procedures, speculate on how the pandemic will change infection control, and confronts the idea that elective procedures are unnecessary.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
Interview starts: 17:29
- Dr. Baliwas discusses how COVID has impacted business at his clinic and the difficulty in impressing the seriousness of the virus to some patients.
- Why this situation should get us to realize how necessary some elective procedures really are.
- How Dr. Baliwas is balancing the importance of dental work while emphasizing why people need to stay at home right now.
- Dr. Baliwas explains how social media has played a critical role in reaching out to patients and colleagues alike.
- The “Dexter Standard” of infection control and how Dr. Baliwas weighs his options while treating patients during the quarantine.
- How will Dr. Baliwas’s approach to infection control and PPE change in the aftermath of COVID.
QUOTES:
“Now, we’re gonna have to dig ourselves out of this hole and really education our patients again about the urgency of some of this stuff.”
“It might just help out with a shelter-in-place or people staying at home if we kept the value of what we were doing up high.”
“I’ve built a good practice of people who value my work, who understand it, understand what we’re doing, and they’re invested.”
“If you’re not doing the things that most people don’t think is overkill anyway, then you might be held liable for that.”
“We gotta see the silver lining here and really push our infection control to be improved.”
“Approach it from a place of being helpful rather than being sales-y.”
LINKS:
Dr.Baliwas’s homepage - https://www.sfdentalnerd.com/
Dr.Baliwas’s email: baliwasdds@gmail.com
Dr.Baliwas’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sfdentalnerd/
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