Dr. Franck Renouard: Crisis Situations in Your Practice

Episode summary

Dr. Franck Renouard, a Paris oral and implant surgeon who now teaches human factors to surgeons, anesthesiologists and nuclear-plant engineers, opens Season 5 of the ZAGA Centers Podcast with his new Quintessence book, Crisis Situations in Your Practice: Understanding and Preventing Them through Human and Organizational Factors, written with Dr. Florence Roussarie and co-authors Clément Babin and Véronique Delmas. A helicopter crash first drew him to human factors, the topic of his Edentulism 2025 session. His argument is that in a dental emergency the problem is rarely knowledge: stress cuts access to the prefrontal, executive brain, so clinicians fail to apply what they already know. The book covers how the brain works under pressure, then gives protocols, drills and cognitive aids for events such as an inhaled instrument, cardiac arrest, fire or an aggressive patient, and for stressful procedures like zygomatic implant surgery. Renouard also covers hydration, sleep deprivation, the second victim syndrome and the economic return of non-technical skills training.

Key takeaways

The book is split in two parts: the first explains how the brain and behaviour work under stress; the second gives concrete protocols for unforeseen events in the dental office.
After an emergency-procedures course with his own team of more than 25 practitioners, assistants and secretaries in Paris, Renouard realised the team still could not cope with a real event: the gap was applying knowledge under panic, not knowing what to do.
If a patient inhales an instrument, the first step is not the Heimlich manoeuvre but taking a few seconds to check whether the patient is breathing, which feels very long in a panic.
When a patient collapses, the first action is to designate a leader, something most emergency courses skip; drills and cognitive aids then make sure no step of the procedure is missed.
Under stress the brain switches to fast, automatic reactions, so the team needs trained automatisms: Renouard recommends 10 to 15 minutes of drill or mental rehearsal every two to three months, involving the assistants.
Small physiological factors matter: about 1% dehydration already impairs decision-making, 2% causes loss of information and 3% irritability, and 24 hours without sleep affects the brain like roughly one gram of alcohol per litre of blood. He drank half a glass of water before every surgery.
Industry data cited by Renouard put the return on human factors and non-technical skills training at about 2.2 euros per euro invested; a single cancelled four-implant case, because nobody called the patient to stop anticoagulants, shows how errors cost money.
His main lesson from two years of writing: surgeons need free mental space. Checklists and team briefings offload memory so the clinician can notice slow drift from the protocol and adapt when the day does not go as planned.

What you'll learn

Why stress blocks clinicians from applying what they know in an emergency
Why the first step in a crisis is to designate a leader
Short, regular drills and mental rehearsal for the whole dental team
How hydration, fatigue and noise affect surgical decision-making
The second victim syndrome and the business case for human factors training

About the guest

Dr. Franck Renouard

Dr. Franck Renouard is a dental surgeon who practised in Paris, limited to oral and implant surgery, until he stopped clinical work two years ago. Early in his career he spent three years in the maxillofacial surgery team of Jean-François Tulasne. After a helicopter accident he began studying human factors, and he now teaches the subject across medicine and high-risk industries, including anesthesiology, surgery and nuclear power. He shares his time between teaching and the family vineyard near Nîmes, in the south of France. He was a speaker at Edentulism 2025 and featured in Season 4, Episode 1 of the podcast.

Credentials: DDS, oral and implant surgeon, Paris; past president of the European Academy of Osseointegration

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About the book

Crisis Situations in Your Practice: Understanding and Preventing Them through Human and Organizational Factors (Quintessence, 2026), by Dr. Franck Renouard and Dr. Florence Roussarie, with Clément Babin and Véronique Delmas. Also available in French.