Preparing the Offices for Team Popp Patients

drcoltonpopp
May 8, 2020
3 min read

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” -J.R.R. Tolkien

Dr. Tom, Dr. Colton, and Dr. Leah are all huge Lord of the Rings fans. This Tolkien quote really hit close to home during this difficult time.

Like many of you out there, we at Team Popp Dental did not expect to be shut down for six weeks due to the Governor's Executive Order. Even though we were not able to see our wonderful patients for regular care, we wanted to make the most of the time that was given to us in order to insure our patients' safety once we were allowed to re-open.

One priority of ours was to build privacy walls to physically distance our patients from one another.

Fortunately, we had some help from our youngest team member's (Selena Popp) fiancé, Doss Harman. His expertise made us able to get the walls up quickly.

After completing our Hixson office, we were ready to move in Dr. Leah Popp's office, formerly known as Ward and Popp Dental. This gave her patient's much more needed space to keep them distanced and safe.

Dr. Tom Popp and Dr. Colton Popp, with the help of Student Dr. Bryson Popp (2nd year dental student), put up privacy walls at our Gunbarrel office for the same reasons!

While we were inside, the grass wouldn't stop growing! We had to keep it looking nice for an eventual return!

The other important factor was keeping up with new OSHA guidelines and American Dental Association recommendations for PPE to keep everyone safe during this COVID 19 Crisis. We also saw emergency patients and organized our own set of protocols to see those patients in a manner that keeps everyone safe. Our other virtual dental "visits" were helping emergency patients and coaching new parents on proper ways to take care of their children's teeth! We are super grateful for patients' and parents' understanding during this time and their willingness to get assistance from us over the phone to keep everyone safe!

It was a long six weeks for a number of reasons, but the main reason was because we missed having all of our wonderful patients on a daily basis. We know that, even though Tennessee dentists are allowed to practice, we are nowhere near the end of this pandemic. That's why we have protocols in place to keep our patients and staff safe. These protocols can be found at this link: https://www.teampoppdental.com/post/reopening-protocols

We wanted to end on one more great quote from LOTR that is very applicable to this difficult time:

"Frodo : I can't do this, Sam.

Sam : I know. It's all wrong By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.