Medical Emergencies Part 2 – CORE CPD for Dentists – PDP242

Imagine your patient is choking on a rubber dam clamp…what’s the safest way to manage choking when the patient is lying flat?

Your patient’s hands are shaking and they’re drenched in sweat – is it low blood sugar, anxiety, or a cardiac event?

​​Do you know exactly what to do if your patient has a seizure in the chair?

This second part of the Medical Emergencies series with  Rachel King Harris dives even deeper into real-life scenarios that dental teams may face. From seizures and how (and when) to give buccal midazolam, to managing choking in a dental chair, this episode is packed with practical, clear guidance.

We also explore key steps in treating diabetic hypoglycaemia, understanding glucagon vs glucose, and how to confidently manage patients with angina or previous heart attacks—when to use GTN, when to give aspirin, and when to simply wait for the ambulance.

It’s all about staying calm, being prepared, and delivering safe, effective care when it matters most.

Protrusive Dental Pearl: Assign a clear lead to regularly check the expiry dates and supplies of emergency medications and equipment. This isn’t just about ticking regulatory boxes — it’s about saving lives. Little checks like this can make a big difference in a true emergency.

Need to Read it? Check out the Full Episode Transcript below!

Highlights of this episode:

• 00:00 Teaser
• 00:44 Intro
• 03:09 Protrusive dental pearl
• 04:14 Recap from Part 1
• 06:58 Seizures: Personal Experiences and Practical Tips
• 13:45 Seizure Emergency Kit: Buccal Midazolam
• 21:29 Emergency Drug Kit Overview
• 22:10 Choking: Techniques and Guidelines
• 29:19 Midroll
• 32:40 Choking: Techniques and Guidelines
• 34:05 Handling Infant Choking Emergencies
• 36:11 Recognizing and Managing Hypoglycemia
• 41:11 Emergency Protocols for Hypoglycemia
• 47:35 Managing Cardiac Emergencies in Dental Practice
• 58:59 Final Thoughts and Training Recommendations
• 01:00:39 Outro

Stay up to date by reviewing the latest guidelines from the Resuscitation Council UK.

Grab your Anaphylaxis Summary + Medical Emergency Cheatsheets from https://protrusive.co.uk/me.

And make sure you’ve listened to Part 1 of Medical Emergencies so you don’t miss any crucial information.

#PDPMainEpisodes #CareerDevelopment #BeyondDentistry

​​This episode is eligible for 1 CE credit via the quiz on Protrusive Guidance. 

This episode meets GDC Outcomes C and D.

AGD Subject Code: 142 Medical emergency training and CPR

Aim: To equip dental professionals with the knowledge, confidence, and practical skills to recognize and effectively manage common medical emergencies in the dental setting, ensuring patient safety and optimal outcomes.

Dentists will be able to:

1. Identify signs and symptoms of common medical emergencies in dental practice, including anaphylaxis, asthma attacks, seizures, angina, hypoglycemia, and stroke.
2. Describe the immediate management protocols for each emergency, including correct drug doses, routes, and timings.
3. Demonstrate appropriate use of emergency equipment and drugs available in the dental setting.

Click below for full episode transcript:

Teaser: And you're saying that you deal with one hole only and it's the mouth and not anywhere else.

Teaser:
When you’re becoming a dentist and you have to choose between medical and dental school, you either look up one and you look down the other, and so I said, let me look down, not up. So here we are.

That made me realize, and the advice on that Facebook post was, anyone age five or under choke on grapes. And so you totally agree with that?

I do. I do. I just think it’s not worth it. Sweaty. Sweaty. Very, very clammy. You know, there’s pools of sweat that I mentioned with hypose. You can get exactly the same with an MI.

Yeah. Nausea, vomiting, sweaty, clammy, impending doom. So again, a bit like anaphylaxis, they say they feel like they’re gonna die. Blood pressure drops usually. Not always-

But here’s the thing where this is happening, right? I’m going back to-

Jaz’s Introduction:
Welcome back to Part Two of Medical Emergencies to get you that big fat tick for your annual CPD requirement for medical emergencies, and hopefully in a way that you can leverage the time of commuting so it doesn’t feel like something extra you’re doing.

Also in a way that was conversational, something that was easy to listen to, and hopefully the retention will be really good. And to enhance that retention, don’t forget, we have got our premium notes, like a revision summary done for you notes for every episode for our premium subscribers. If you’re not on the already, head to www.protrusive.app.

In the last episode, we covered the most common medical emergencies that we see or could see vasovagal syncope, anaphylaxis, which is worrying and common nowadays, but with serious consequences. And we talk a lot about oxygen, like which medical emergencies should we be giving oxygen for and how do you actually give the oxygen?

The thing is right, we as dentists, we hardly ever administer oxygen. We only are told to do it when there’s a medical emergency, but I want to cover it because when push comes to shove and we need to deliver the auction, I’m hoping you found it useful to hear and to watch for those of you’re watching how to actually activate the damn thing.

And what it all looks like and works like. So that was all covered in part one. In this part two, we’re covering seizures, how to handle a patient that is having a seizure, including how you might actually deliver the buccal midazolam. What does it actually look like and feel like? And interestingly why in many scenarios you may not even need to give it.

Then we moved to choking. And we all know about back slaps and abdominal thrust, but we simulated choking and we discussed choking specifically for your patient that is like laying down the chair the exact steps you should do when your patient’s in your dental chair and why. Therefore, you may need to do a one handed abdominal thrust.

And so you get to hear about that and watch that again, if you’re watching on the app. The last two things we discussed were diabetics and how the whole glucose and glucagon works and how to administer each one, as well as our cardiac risk patients. These ones are very common patients that make me a little bit nervous.

These are patients with a history of angina, history of heart attacks in the past, and so therefore, should we be avoiding using adrenaline containing local anesthetics. And what should be doing if they’re having some sort of an episode in your chair. So once again, we’re joined by Rachel King Harris, or today’s part two, Deep Dive into Medical Emergencies.

Dental Pearl
Hello, Protruserati. I’m Jaz Gulati and welcome back to your favorite Dental Podcast. Every PDP episode I give you a Protrusive Dental Pearl. In the last one it was to download for each condition the kind of like cheat sheet prompts that when you open up your medical emergencies drug box, like it’s so reassuring to see the step by step what you’re looking for, what to do next.

It was like a really helpful thing. I think every single medical emergency is boxing. Every dental practice should have this. So that was last episode’s Protrusive Pearl. This one is a bit more simple, but equally important is that are you checking the expiry date of your meds?

Who has been allocated as someone who takes a lead on this? Not only is this important to satisfy CQC or regulatory requirements to make sure your practice can run and stay in business. But this is life saving stuff. So who’s the person who’s checking monthly or quarterly to make sure that nothing is running out of date and that all the supply is there and it’s working and you haven’t run outta oxygen or your glucagon’s not outta date, and all those things.

So make sure you have a clear lead because that’s how you Protruserati, these little things are the big things. Hope you enjoy the episode. I’ll catch you at the end. I’ll give you more instructions of how to claim the CPD.

Main Episode:
Rachel, welcome back again to the Protrusive Dental Podcast for part two. 

[Rachel]
Thank you for having me again.

[Jaz]
So in the last episode, we covered the common things. What I wanna do is make a really tangible piece of content with your help. So we covered the things that most likely common to happen. Okay. So, vasovagal syncope, ie the faint, super common, went deep into that. We went into anaphylaxis and I think we covered it really well.

We also talked about the oxygen, about what is the right dose of oxygen? Can you actually do harm by giving