Clinical

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A f*ree textbook of skin cancer and its mimics.

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

Aimed at medical students, doctors trying to get (re) acquainted with dermatology and other paramedical staff this new on-line text book is worth investigating by dentists and their teams. Dentists are in the enviable but responsible position of seeing our patients regularly and are therefore better placed to observe changes of the head and neck [...]

Often quoted but ever read?

Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

The Hippocratic Oath is frequently referred to during discussions about medicine, and by extension dentistry. Portions are quoted but I never knew whether they were taken in or out of context. To my knowledge nobody ever discusses the full words and meaning of the statements, attributed to Hippocrates, some two and a half millennia ago [...]

Doing Botox? – here’s the man to thank.

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

In these days where many dentists offer “Botox” as part of their Aesthetic Dental Menu, a profitable procedure with the benefit to the provider that it needs to be “topped up” so there is the potential for plenty of repeat business. Perhaps we should pause and give thanks the late John Lee whose obituary was [...]

Breakthrough In Dental Plaque Research

Sunday, December 5th, 2010

I wonder how many “at last an end to tooth decay” articles I have seen over the past 30 years. Ever the optimist here’s some recent research. From Medical News Today The Groningen professors Bauke Dijkstra and Lubbert Dijkhuizen have deciphered the structure and functional mechanism of the glucansucrase enzyme that is responsible for dental [...]

BDA says enough is enough

Sunday, November 21st, 2010

The British Dental Association has been criticised for its lack of resistance to the recent impositions of HTM01-05 and the Care Quality Commission. In the past couple of days they have issed the following statement and have done a U-turn on making the advice package available free of charge to members, (it was originally going [...]

Please tell me it’s April 1st

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

Politicians and HEALTHCARE seem to be mutually exclusive, the temptation to adopt a Meldrew pose and yell as loud as my lungs & larynx will allow “I DON’T BELIEVE IT!” is almost overwhelming. From the Guardian www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/12/mcdonalds-pepsico-help-health-policy McDonald’s and PepsiCo to help write UK health policy Exclusive: Department of Health putting fast food companies at [...]

Mouth Cancer Action Month

Sunday, November 7th, 2010

Here’s an article from my most recent Ezine, about Mouth Cancer Awareness Month. Please read it in conjunction with my blogpost on the cause of Oral Cancers that I wrote in August last year. …….On my first full afternoon, tiring of shopping in The Mall and dreading spending any more time than I needed in [...]

Two Great Meetings In Gloucestershire

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

I was in on the “ground floor” of Gloucestershire Independent Dentists when it formed in the early 1990s following the NHS fee cut and (yet another) new NHS contract. I still attend their meetings when I am able and am happy to present advance notice of a couple of good ones upcoming in the next [...]

Orthopaedics v Anaesthesia

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

But it could be applied to any surgical specialism. Early in my hospital career I quickly tired of patients being referred to the wisdom teeth in bed 22 or the fracture on ward so and so. One of my early coaches, David Price, used to pose the question “What will you do for the benefit [...]

Dry Mouth- Potentially Good News?

Monday, October 4th, 2010

During the later stages of my father’s life he suffered with xerostomia, or dry mouth, due to his anti-diuretic medication. It meant that he found it extremely difficult to wear his dentures; always a proud man, this added a psychological problem to his physical ones. It was a sign of the poor care that he [...]