“To Watch Or To Fix? That Is The Question…”

Recently someone that I know had an unexpected medical diagnosis.

This person, who has chosen to have regular preventive diagnostics on an annual basis since way back when, had changed her doctor to a new female GP [doctor] who during a routine examination wasn’t happy with what she was feeling. So the new GP sent my friend to have another mammogram, that was four months earlier than her next annual mammogram was due.

The latest mammogram caused the new GP to then order a biopsy for my friend.

When the radiologist looked at the biopsy results, one of the “options” that the radiologist suggested was:

“We could wait six months and see if this thing changes.”

My friend’s new GP was more definite.

The GP immediately referred my friend to an oncologist for an expert opinion.

Long story short?

My friend ended up having two sessions of surgery under general anaesthetic to remove the pre-malignant ductal tissue, followed by three weeks of radiation therapy.

The oncologist is very confident.

And so is my friend.

But…

But what if my friend had taken the radiologist’s advice, and waited six months, and the pre-malignant tissue had changed during that time for the worst?

In the same way that the tissue had become pre-malignant in the eight months since my friend’s previous mammogram?

What if my friend had decided to just “watch things” as the radiologist had suggested, and things had gone south?

Would my friend have been happy with that option she was recommended?

My friend was certainly glad that her new GP had “pushed” her in the direction of the oncologist, that’s for sure.

In dentistry…

In dentistry, how many times have you heard a dental practitioner tell a patient that:

“we’re going to watch this one”

with regard to some pathology they see in the patient’s mouth?

It happens way too many times.

And I’m not sure why dentists say this, because we know that dental conditions do not repair themselves.

Decay doesn’t remove itself.

Cracks in teeth don’t disappear of their own accord.

And nor does a periodontal infection resolve spontaneously…

Pockets don’t fix themselves…

Yet there are plenty of dentists who diagnose pathology, but undertreat those conditions, for some reason?

I’ve often said…

I’ve often said that I wish dental conditions were fatal, because then patients might take our diagnoses of their oral health more seriously.

But then I think that smoking cigarettes will kill you, and people still buy them, even with those hideous photos on the outside of the cigarette packets.

To be sure, patients will choose to have their treatment when they are ready.

But if the dental profession keeps under diagnosing and under presenting necessary dental treatment to patients when they see it, then the oral health and even the systemic health of those patients is being adversely affected by this under-presentation.

Here’s my take:

Watches are things that you put on your wrist.

They don’t go on teeth!

As a dentist it is your duty to remove pathology from the mouths of your patients.

It is your duty to help your patients have healthy mouths.

It’s in their best interests.

That’s all that matters.

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