Good morning to all our Friends and Patients,
As we move into the 2nd month of life no-longer-as usual I hope you are all well and adapting as best you can to the new abnormal.
Yep-I miss work and my team and my patients. Yep-some nights sleep is elusive. Yep-not being with friends and family is difficult! Every day I’m in touch with dental friends from all over the country, monitoring what the best minds in dentistry think will happen.
Amongst those I communicate with, while we are all still coming to grips with an event none of us could have imagined, there does appear to be a shifting emphasis in the last week or so in how we all move forward. My dental colleagues and I are noticing the change in the types of correspondence we are receiving daily.
We seem to be moving on from how to shutter our offices, apply for loans, and keep our business viable, to what comes next.
So What Does Come Next?
Here in NYC the dental community is judiciously and thoughtfully awaiting guidance from our elected officials on a state and city level to tell us when we may re-open our offices. My guess is we are at least a month, and most probably longer, away from this happening. Like many of my dental colleagues, I am fully aware that opening the office to again provide dental care will involve significant changes in standard operating procedures. Every day the American Dental Association, New York State Dental Association and other medical and dental organizations, in association with governmental authorities, are re-imagining protocols to protect patients, staff members and dental care providers.
How we implement appropriate social distancing, provide adequate PPE and change our delivery of care methodology is a work in progress.Rest assured that my office will not re-open until adequate provisions have been made to keep all of us protected to the best of our collective abilities. My team and I have already begun conversations about how to reorganize and restructure what we do to keep all of us healthy and safe.
In the meantime, it appears that the protocols we have established to maintain communications with our patients are working well. The office phone is being answered weekdays on a regular basis to help answer your questions and triage emergencies. I can be reached by voice mail paging (631-233-0065) and by e-mail drsorin@nycdmd.com.
I will continue to stay in touch. Feel free to reach me if needed. There is light at the end of the tunnel. We just don’t know yet how long it will take to get there!
Please stay well and be healthy.
Dr. Robert M. Sorin, DMD