ISSN: 2640-2726
Authors: Nathan JE*
Amongst the skills and competency expected of the pediatric dental specialist is an enhanced ability to circumvent and obtund interfering and refractory behaviour of moderately to severely apprehensive and resistive children. Wide variation exists among this specialist with respect to individual talents to accomplish treatment on this population making use of both nonpharmacological as well as pharmacological approaches. While advanced training programs vary greatly in the extent to which their residents are exposed to various modalities, likely explanation to account for such lies in the diversity to which their faculty bring competent and diversified experience. Some bring extensive background to the use of a variety of agents and dosing; others conceivably offer limited exposure to residents by not having had extensive use during their own training programs. Expertise and a propensity to include a broad repertoire of agents and modalities by Program Directors is highly variable. External sources include administrative perspectives, safety records, formulary limitations, and biases of state and regulatory agencies as to what agents and regimens impose restrictions on this teaching experience. This editorial expresses observations of this author over the past 40 plus years concludes that the use of pediatric sedation has diminished to the extent that its safe and successful use is at risk of becoming a vanishing art. The end result is that an increasing number of children by virtue of a lack of skilled clinicians in its safe use will be subjected to excessive if not unnecessary use of unconscious techniques and/or physical restraint.
Keywords: Pediatric Sedation; Efficacy; Obstacles to its Success
