I try to speak on patient safety at dental conferences whenever possible. I had the privilege of speaking at two recent conferences that were especially inspiring and educational. First, this past September, I lectured at Harvard’s Pediatric Sedation Outside the OR Symposium in San Francisco. My lecture was well received, and I enjoyed hearing the other speakers at the conference. In particular, I appreciated the insights of Dr. James Tom, DDS (Professor of Dental Anesthesiol

Hi, my name is Dr. Steve Yun, MD. I am a board-certified dental anesthesiologist in southern California. Last month I had the opportunity to tour Paisley Park, the former home and estate of Prince outside Minneapolis. It was an amazing experience, but also a somber reminder of how we lost a musical genius to the opioid epidemic. We have all read the statistics and headlines about the opioid crisis, but what should be our response as a dental community? First, we should m

Hi, my name is Dr. Steve Yun, MD. I am a board-certified dental anesthesiologist in southern California. Recently, I helped conduct a teaching session at the Simulation Center at Loma Linda University Medical Center. Using state of the art technology and “smart” patient mannequins, we are able to create realistic medical scenarios to help train dental professionals to manage rare but life-threatening emergencies in the dental office. Even though we are in a simulation environ

Hi, my name is Dr. Steve Yun, and I am a board-certified dental anesthesiologist in Southern California. Recently I took care of a young woman in her 20s who needed extensive dental rehabilitation. She had severe cerebral palsy, was very small for her age (height = 4 ft ; weight = 62 lbs), and was not able to cooperate with any dental procedure. Her mouth opening was extremely limited (less than 1.5 inches). She had a history of cleft palate/lip repair. In addition, the denti

Hi, my name is Dr. Steve Yun, M.D., and I am a board-certified dental anesthesiologist in Southern California. (Above diagram taken from www.medlineplus.gov). The ALCAPA Syndrome is a rare congenital heart defect that affects 1 of every 300,000 live births. ALCAPA stands for Anomalous Left Coronary Artery from the Pulmonary Artery. The left coronary artery is the main artery that supplies oxygen-rich blood to the heart muscle. Normally, the left coronary artery arises from th

Hi, my name is Dr. Steve Yun, M.D., and I am a board-certified dental anesthesiologist. The first and most important question I am often asked is this: "Is dental anesthesia safe for my child?" I totally understand the anxiety behind this question. As the father of two children who had dental anesthesia, I empathize with parents' concerns. However, I can assure you that dental anesthesia, when performed PROPERLY by the PROPER PERSONNEL, is EXTREMELY safe. Indeed, as parents w

Hi, I am Dr. Steve Yun and I am a board-certified dental anesthesiologist in Southern California. February and March are especially busy for me as I have a number of medical conferences that I attend. The first was the Annual Patient Safety Movement Summit in February. The featured speaker was President Bill Clinton, who spoke about our push to have ZERO preventable deaths by 2020. I am pleased to announce that I was also selected as the California Regional Chair for the Pati