Dental picks: What's the policy?
Tuesday June 12, 2007
At my dentist the other day, I finally remembered to ask what they do with their old hand tools—you know, the stainless steel picks they use to clean your teeth. Every rockhound, mineral collector and fossil freak knows how useful these tools are for delicate tasks, and it's a nearly universal recommendation to get them from your friendly neighborhood dentist. But my hygeinist said, "We wrap them up and dispose them with the rest of our medical sharps," claiming this is an OSHA rule. If that's true, the rule isn't easy to find in Google. Should we stop asking our dentists for their old tools?
UPDATE: The About.com Dentistry Guide, Tammy Davenport, says in the Comments that we shouldn't stop asking. And over at LiveJournal, someone has posted the (ambiguous) OSHA rule.
Comments
I do think your hygienist is mistaken. I know of no such law and after dental instruments are autoclaved (sterilized) they are NOT contaminated and pose no threats.
Don’t stop asking, just ask different dentists. I have found that emailing a dentist directly from their website is great because they usually all check their own messages and will reply to you directly. This way you don’t have to go through staff members that don’t really know.
Good luck and happy digging!
Tammy
Maybe it is a state by state thing, my dentist discards his and will not give his away either. Maybe also, they are afraid we will try to clean our own teeth, and the dentist will somehow be liable.
Dave
I never thought about that, that’s a very good point.
Old or new Dental instruments adapt wonderfully to geologists’ work, mechanics pulling “O” rings, and cleaning small areas. It is important that the dental office sterilize them before giving them away. When properly done there is no cross-contamination possible. I was a dental supply salesman and have collected thousands of them for charitable work in U.S.A., C.A., S.A. and other areas around the world. Use them up, save raw materials!
Sorry, forgot something. These instruments should be steam sterilized before leaving the dental office. Cold sterilization is highly problematic in that it requires as much as 14 hours immersion and no debris on instruments. This amount of soak time ruins instruments and hardly anyone does it. So the term is misleading. Steam sterilize!!
I just got four double ended picks from my dentist. They look new to me.
Introduce me to your dentist, please!
Or you can just pick them up on ebay…