An Orthodontic Products’ round-up of practitioners across the United States, assisting staff members and donating medical supplies in their local communities.

With the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic still at large and the unexpected time on their hands, many orthodontic practices across the United States are stepping up to assist their staff through the storm, and donate supplies in their local medical communities to help prevent the further spread of the disease. Here’s a roundup of orthodontic healthcare heroes:

Instead of straightening teeth for his high school patients—who would typically be preparing for prom and senior graduation—Clint Emerson, DDS, of Emerson Orthodontics, is trying to figure out the ‘Paycheck Protection Program’ for his employees, and how to navigate small business loans. His practice had to cancel more than 2,000 appointments and furlough 16 employees last month.

For him, the biggest stress is just not having all the knowledge to be able to guide everybody in the right direction. He and his wife, Amy, a pediatrician at Educare, donated their personal protection equipment (PPE) they had at the office to clinics and doctor’s offices in their local town and are encouraging others to drop off additional supplies at their office in Broken Arrow, Okla. Read more.

The Dental Views, a group of privately owned dentist offices, are lending out their scheduling center to help take calls for scheduling free COVID-19 testing in partnership with the County of Riverside Department of Public Health in California. The county has been overwhelmed with calls coming in to schedule testing. The staff will help take calls and schedule patients for the testing during peak hours.

“It’s impossible not to want to help people in our community at a time like this,” says Ali Zareh, accounting director of The Dental Views. “We are all in this together and without each other what do we have?” Read more.

South Alabama Orthodontics is using its 3D printers to make reusable face masks. Shane Langley, DMD, of the practice, got the idea from others in his industry doing the same thing.

It takes approximately 5 hours to make each mask so he’s got multiple printers running. Once they come out of the 3D printer, a piece of HEPA-filter is put on, bringing them up to N-100 standards. Employees are working hard to make hundreds of face shields and as many 3D face masks as they can. The design is an open-source file and available through the South Alabama Orthodontics Facebook page. Read more.