Dr. Jennifer Cleveland and colleagues’ February JADA article, "Preventing Percutaneous Injuries Among Dental Health Care Personnel" (JADA 2007;138[2]):169–78), was very informative and helpful, and points out a very serious problem for the practicing dentist.
If an employee has a percutaneous injury, it becomes a potentially serious problem for all of us. To avoid the problem of an employee’s being injured, we instituted a method several years ago: only the operating dentist handles the sharps in our office. The operating surgeon removes all sharps (needles, scalpels, sutures) and places them in a sharp container in each operating room. No employee handles used sharps.
This has reduced injuries to zero in our office, and the employees are very happy that we show concern and care for their welfare.
