Hello WLADS,
I wanted to take a moment to reach out to all of you. I sincerely hope you are all surviving in this very strained, very uncomfortable environment caused by the coronavirus. After personally having a very productive 2019, I, like you, could never have envisioned that I would find myself in this position of not knowing when I can return to work. My wife and I have stayed at home and have “finished” Netflix.
If you know me, it’s clear that I enjoy the profession of dentistry. Most of us miss our office environments and the daily experience of leading our staffs through a usually smooth, sometimes turbulent day and we miss our patients. I appreciate and admire all of the first responders and essential workers, like yourselves, who must often leave the safe confines of home and wade into emergency situations for the betterment of others.
I would encourage all of you to make sure you reach out to friends, family, and loved ones to check in and share your concerns. You’ll feel better. Start a phone chat with peers, check on staff, check on the well-being of others, get some exercise. Keep in contact with your patients. Maybe take an online CE. Let’s use this forced time away from our offices to better ourselves.
Know that your WLADS board and staff are doing their best to provide you with information via e-blasts and social media posts as well as links to pertinent sites and webinars to help you during this period. The latest resources can be found below.
If there is anything I can do, or you feel there is something that WLADS can do better, please reply to this e-mail or contact execdir@westernlads.org.
Flatten the curve and just know that we will all get through this.
Sincerely,
David Downs, DDS |