Four more organizations have endorsed new guidelines that call for two trained personnel to be present when providing deep sedation or general anesthesia to children.
The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry and American Academy of Pediatrics jointly released the updated guidelines in June. In a joint statement, the American Society of Dentist Anesthesiologists, American Society of Anesthesiologists, Society for Pediatric Anesthesia, and Society of Pediatric Sedation announced their support for the guidelines.
The associations also questioned whether the traditional model of oral surgery is the safest possible for pediatric patients and specifically called out the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS). All other sedation guidelines require an independent observer who has advanced pediatric life support training, they noted.
"The standards that continue to be espoused by the AAOMS are wholly inconsistent with the standards of practice for any clinician under any circumstance involving elective pediatric care, including those of the World Health Organization," the organizations wrote in a press release. "We call on oral surgeons and other dental practitioners who provide deep sedation or general anesthesia using the single-provider/operator model to abandon this practice for the care of pediatric patients sedated in dental offices."
