ODA RESOURCES AIM TO IMPROVE DENTIST WELLBEING
This article contains sensitive information about suicide. If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
Providing wellness resources to member dentists is a top priority for the Ohio Dental Association and the American Dental Association.
“Providing wellness resources to members is crucial for the Ohio Dental Association and the American Dental Association because it addresses the high stress and mental health challenges faced by dentists, enhancing their overall well-being and professional performance,” said ODA President Dr. Manny Chopra. “These resources help prevent burnout, support mental health and promote a culture of health, ultimately improving patient care and extending career longevity. Providing wellness programs reflects the ODA’s commitment to addressing the ever-evolving demands and challenges faced by dentists. Wellness resources can enhance the ODA’s appeal to both current and prospective members by ensuring the organization stays responsive to evolving needs, thereby encouraging a wider emphasis on health and wellness within the dental community.”
This year’s Annual Session will feature several wellness initiatives:
- Courses focusing on wellness, including “Cases That Haunt Us: How to React, Rebound and Recover from Clinical Failures” (Course Code T20); “Through Self Awareness Comes Self Evolution” (Course Code F30); “Why Emotional Intelligence is Key to Your Success” (Course Code O77); and several courses presented by Dr. Paul “Nacho” Goodman and others will also touch on wellness topics.
- Friends of Bill W. meeting Friday, Sept. 13 from noon-2 p.m. at the Hilton Columbus Downtown Hotel.
- Morning Yoga at 7 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 13, free with the cost of registration.
- A meditation room inside the Exhibit Hall to accommodate individual spiritual needs.
- Free non-alcoholic options during Hops & Shops in the Exhibit Hall.
In 2023, the ODA House of Delegates passed a resolution to expand the scope of the ODA’s Subcouncil on Dentists Concerned for Dentists (DCD) to identify those areas which impact the dentist’s mental, emotional and/or physical ability to function professionally and to develop a means by which to assist the member in addressing those needs.
“We’ve always been there and now we’re broadening our footprint,” said Dr. Mark Wenzel, chair of DCD. “We are a resource and we always will be a resource for wellness in Ohio now that we’re expanding into an overall resource.”
DCD has served to provide help and direction to chemically impaired dentists for more than 35 years.
“DCD was started years ago because we had a number of suicides by dentists confronted about alcohol or drug use,” Wenzel said. “A complaint would come to the dental board and one of their officers would stop by and say, ‘someone from the dental board is here and wants to talk about how much you’re drinking,’ or ‘you’re using an awful lot of narcotics in your office, can you account for those?’ and the dentist ends up going home and killing themselves because they’ve been found out. DCD is an important resource for them to get help.”
DCD works with the Ohio Physicians Health Program to get help for dentists who may need treatment, monitoring, drug testing or counseling and works with all Ohio State Dental Board approved treatment centers.
“We can act as a clearing house for information for people to get into treatment or continue into treatment, if they need to have monitoring we can work with our friends to get them monitoring to comply with the state dental board,” Wenzel said. “But really the most important thing we can do is make a phone call. Talk to someone, have a one-on-one conversation and let them know it will be OK. We can help. We don’t know all the answers, but we can help connect people with resources and share stories of recovery and how people came back from this and what they did.”
Wenzel said often the first step is getting an assessment, just like for any other medical condition. Through the assessment, a doctor will recommend next steps if necessary.
“There are a lot of different parts to this; there’s not just one way,” Wenzel said.
Any dentist who thinks they may be addicted to drugs or alcohol can contact the ODA at (614) 486-2700 or dentist@oda.org. They will first speak with Suzanne Brooks, ODA director of meetings and conventions, who will put them in contact with Wenzel. All information is kept strictly confidential. Spouses, office team members, friends and colleagues can also contact the ODA if they have any concerns or questions about a dentist who they think may be abusing drugs or alcohol. Dentists do not need to be a member of the ODA to utilize DCD services.
“If they just want to talk, I’d be more than happy to talk to them,” Wenzel said. “The key is though if you think alcohol is causing problems in your life, it probably is.”
Wenzel is in recovery so understands what it is like to go through addiction and recovery as a dentist.
“I treat my disease every day,” he said. “There’s going to be bumps in the road like anything else. If someone is willing, we can usually get them help and get them taken care of.”
Wenzel said that if a dentist goes into treatment, they need to go to an Ohio State Dental Board approved center and follow whatever treatment the center prescribes for them after, which typically is going to a certain number of AA meetings, having a sponsor and random drug screenings for five years.
Wenzel said that many dentists are fearful of the public finding out about their addiction and how it will affect their practice, but he said in his experience, he’s never seen anyone’s practice curtailed as long as they get the help they need.
“We seem to have a lot of stress we put on ourselves because of the way dentistry is, we are taught we need to be perfect, we work by ourselves a lot of times and people are kind of isolated,” Wenzel said. “We’re hard on ourselves when things don’t work out. Plus if you’re genetically predisposed to this you can go down the wrong path and have a problem.”
One dentist DCD was able to help had been using narcotics in his office for a long time and one of his employees was going to call the dental board to report him.
“I get this call in my office from his wife. This individual actually had a gun in his hand and was going to commit suicide,” Wenzel said. “I spoke to the wife and said ‘I need to talk to him. Ask him if he’ll put the gun down and talk to me. Then take the gun and do something with it.’ I talked to the guy for about three or four hours. He was crying, I said ‘let’s get you over to people who can help.’ So we took him to a treatment center that night. He went through the program and he was sober the rest of his life. It was amazing that we could do that. He kept saying how we saved his life, but he had a big part in this. People addicted to drugs or alcohol have to realize they have a disease and they have to treat the disease, they have to get to the point where they want to treat the disease.”
DCD also hosts a Friends of Bill W. meeting at ODA Annual Session.
“Basically we have an AA meeting, it’s a safe place for someone during the Annual Session to connect with other people in recovery and just kind of get a chance to breathe,” Wenzel said. “Especially people in early recovery, there can be a lot of triggers for using again and drinking again, and this is a safe place for them.”
The idea came about when a colleague in recovery told Wenzel that he used to come to ODA Annual Session and party the whole time, and when he went into recovery, there was some fear about going back because he had never been sober the whole weekend at Annual Session.
The ODA website also features a page of wellness resources. For more information, click here.
Stay tuned to future issues of the “ODA Today” for more information about wellness resources from the American Dental Association.
