Volume 8 • 2021 • Issue 1

B ack in March, the general dentist from Winnipeg, published an article on her personal blog entitled The Rest of the Water , a heartfelt response to the onset of the pandemic. Touching upon her own concerns and vulnerabilities, along with her considerable insight, the blog post was an honest expression of how it felt to be standing on the cliff edge that we have all come to know as COVID-19. Navigating a myriad of thoughts and emotions that surely reflected the anxieties of dentists across Canada, Dr. Simoens ultimately arrived at the conclusion that, although fear and anxiety were perfectly understandable responses to the most significant health crisis of our time, they were not particularly useful. What could be useful was the sense that we were all in this together and that we must do the best we can with the situation at hand. When asked about what inspired her to write and share the blog post, she replies in a characteristically candid and generous way: “COVID came at us all of a sudden. I tried to distill the article into a cohesive piece that focused on my own experience,” she says. “I think sometimes it’s helpful to know that someone else is thinking what you’re thinking and is sharing your experience. That’s what I wanted to offer my colleagues, more than anything.” Throughout our conversation on Zoom, Dr. Simoens’ upbeat outlook shines through. Honest. Practical. Positive. Given the events these past months, it is an outlook that has served her well. She talks about the lockdown period. It was a hard lesson, financially and otherwise. But she says it was an important lesson. “Dentistry as we knew it shut down, and I’m glad. Taking a step away from our practices gave us the time and realization to look at things under a microscope and think twice about what we’re doing every day. It allowed us to put great precautions in place and get everyone on the same page.” From the beginning, she and her partner at the Waverley Dental Centre in Winnipeg, Dr. Kelly Regula, adopted a simple go-to mantra: focus on what we can do, and do it as well as we can. What followed was a battery of phone consultations with patients, personal delivery of care packages containing high- fluoride toothpaste and other dental products, necessary office refurbishments to meet infection control measures, and regular team meetings on Zoom to keep staff informed. On one occasion, Dr. Simoens even went to the pharmacy Finding Positivity in a Time of COVID Dr. Lori Simoens If you ask Dr. Lori Simoens whether the proverbial glass is half empty or half full, she’s likely to say neither. Instead, she’ll probably tell you it depends on whether you have just poured into the glass or drunk from it, before swiftly announcing that she doesn’t care about the glass anyway. She is neither an optimist nor pessimist. What she cares about is doing the best she can with what’s left of the water. 26 | 2021 | Issue 1