Dr Usha Mohandas

Prof Dr Usha Mohandas; President of the Indian Society of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry  is Principal of the VS Dental College Bangalore. She is not only a practitioner of Pediatric Dentistry in Bangalore but is also actively involved in reaching out to Children with special needs through her "gift a smile foundation"

 I believe that a person who recommends GA  for any child should be shot!!!.... Unless it is ABSOLUTELY indicated. There are very clear guidelines on this and I feel we should tread very carefully in this field. I think the challenge of being a pediatric dentist is the struggle, the skill involved in managing a child in the dental chair. I feel I have failed as a pedodontist if I resort to General Anesthesia because I feel it is “Easy” or worse, because it is “lucrative”. A lot many people would like to work on children when they are sleeping, it is cowardice and because of the money involved I would even go so far as describe it as abuse. I am a traditional Pedodontist who believes in doing every case under LA unless it is absolutely contraindicated. I will resort to GA only as a last resort and the guidelines for those guidelines are evident to every ethical dentist, and they will use GA as a necessary tool; not the next successful pedodontic business strategy