Abstract:

Introduction:
In most Mexican specialty university graduate programs Orthodontics students in their 2nd semester can practice on patients. Students in their 1st semester assist more advanced students but they don´t perform treatments or procedures on the patients. Due to the current health contingency for SARS-Cov-2, most of the orthodontic specialty programs in Mexico have closed their clinics and with these closures, the treatment of patients. As far as we can determine, the private universities whose clinics are still operating are: Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP), Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara (UAG). The public universities whose clinics are operating are: Universidad de Guadalajara (UdeG) and Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala (UATX). The closure of dental clinics at teaching institutions is due to the suggestions of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Mexican government, each state government and each University council. New methods and procedures that allow orthodontic students to continue their clinical training have been developed at some university, but it is unknown or unclear, what these new methods and procedures are throughout all Mexican universities, and in particular the public universities. In this milieu, Mexican universities have no knowledge of the newly developed methods and procedures of other universities, except for the Universidad Autonoma de México (UNAM).

Objectives:
To describe the adaptations made in orthodontic dentistry clinics in 5 mexican universities (2 private and 3 publics with newly developed methods and procedures, a “plan b”).

Methodology:
The statuses used in this study are based upon: 1.) innovations in clinic infrastructure; 2.) modifications to the plan of study; and 3.) modifications to clinical work protocols and treatments. This study describes what the administration, teachers and students are doing during this health contingency in each university, describing organizational changes, methods and procedures changes and program changes, all devised to provide safer care for the patients, students and clinicians. In addition, incidences of SARS-Cov-2 infection are reported in the clinics (for patients, students, teachers or clinic team members).

Results:
Show that UNAM and UPAEP had a “plan b”, but their plans did not provide for changing rooms since the beginning of the health contingency. UPAEP open its clinics 7 months after the health contingency began and although UNAM already has new infrastructure, it will not open this infrastructure until the Federal District Government and the university council decide it is the correct time to do so. ITESM and UdeG already had dressing rooms before the health contingency. The UAG did not have a special dressing room but has a planned wardrobe site and a novel protocol where students and teachers may change clothes. All universities in this study developed a new clinical admission and work protocol for students, patients, teachers and clinical teams. Details of protocols, clinic infrastructure and curriculum trends are outlined in this document.

Conclusion:
We conclude that the rest of the universities without a “plan b” could follow one of the different mechanisms explained above, which in turn would leave their orthodontic clinics open for the academic and clinical benefit of the students and patients without any incidence of infection.

Keywords:

Orthodontics clinical protocol at SARS-Cov-2, orthodontics clinic at sanitary contingency, covid-19 at dental universities, orthodontics infrastructure at covid.