Oral Medicine

Introduction
Medical staff
Service
Academic

Oral Medicine is the specialty of dentistry that sits at the interface between dentistry and medicine. Many Oral Medicine specialists have dental and medical qualifications, and both are now requirements for entry to training that leads to appointment as a Consultant in Oral Medicine. This reflects that the specialty had its origins in dentistry, but has evolved to formally encompass medical aspects of dental care. Oral medicine is part of the additional dental specialties.

In 1997 an independent department of oral medicine was created at the London by the appointment of one full time senior lecturer/hon consultant in oral medicine and one full time lecturer but this is now part of the department of clinical and diagnostic oral sciences. It is an academic unit which provides service to patients, teaching for undergraduates and postgraduates and research.

Medical staff

Prof F Fortune
Prof of Medicine in Relation to Oral Health
Prof Fortune is an authority on Behcet's disease and with others in her team has the largest collection of patients with this disorder in the country.

Service

Referral service for:

Primary care

NHS dental practitioners
NHS medical practitioners

Secondary care

Referral from within dental hospital departments
Referral from within medical/surgical units, paediatrics, rheumatology, gastroenterology, haematology-oncology, immunology of Barts and The London NHS trust
Referral from Hospitals within the UK

Tertiary care

Local and national referrals from neurology/neurosurgery for chronic facial pain to oral medicine clinics
Local and national referrals in relation to Behcet's syndrome and Crohn's disease
Referrals from general medicine/rheumatology/dermatology / HIV service to oral medicine clinics

Academic

Teaching

Teaching and supervision of undergraduate dental students in outpatient clinics
- General oral medicine
- Human disease in relation to oral medicine Human Disease is practice of Medicine in relation to Oral Disease
- Management of patients with complex medical histories
Lecture program to dental undergraduate students
- Provision and marking of in-course assessment of dental undergraduate students
- Provision and marking of BDS examinations of dental undergraduate students
Higher specialist training
- Specialist registrar/honorary clinical lecturer in oral medicine
- Specialist registrars in dermatology
General professional training (dental) - MFDS
- Rotation for SHO's in restorative dentistry

Research
Clinical research and special interests of senior staff:

Inflammatory bowel disease
Behcet's disease
Systemic Immunology resulting in oral disease pathology
Salivary Gland Disease
Early diagnosis of precancerous and cancerous lesions
Oral aspects of HIV/AIDS
Chronic facial pain.