In honor of Oral Cancer Awareness month, the American Academy for Oral Systematic Health (AAOSH) is proud to announce that it has teamed up with the International Dental Oncology Leaders (IDOL) to raise awareness of the importance of oral cancer screenings among those in the medical and dental professions.
IDOL is an “umbrella” organization that brings together a number of foundations involved with oral cancer in an effort to provide education and awareness tools.
Some of IDOL’s missions include:
• Teaching hygienists and assistants to start a conversation about oral cancer with patients
• Expanding the awareness and scope of oral cancer screening
• Educating young people in particular about HPV
• Taking the stigma off oral cancer
• Educating patients and dental professionals on how to care for patients with oral cancer
Linda Miles, top consultant in dental profession and co-founder of IDOL, recently spoke with past president and current board member Dr. Chris Kammer to talk about this alliance.
“It’s a collaborative effort. We’re very excited about the interest we’ve had. One of the biggest challenges is getting the word out about early diagnosis because it’s the only way to save lives. Every 24 hours someone dies from this dreadful disease, and the treatment is oftentimes worse than the disease diagnosis, so early intervention and getting practices on board — that’s everybody’s mission,” Miles said.
“It’s about getting the message to the dental practitioners that you are the physicians of the mouth and it’s standard-of-care, to do a complete and advanced oral cancer screening, which takes only a couple of minutes.”
The International Dental Oncology Leaders website will be launching soon. For updates from Linda Miles and the Oral Cancer Cause (one of IDOL’s foundations), please visit the Oral Cancer Cause website.
At our annual session in Dallas, Sept. 18-20, 2015, one of the oral cancer leaders that Linda mentioned, Dr. Dennis Abbott–who was instrumental in helping form IDOL — will be speaking on our main stage. If you were in St. Louis last September, you may have been to his workshop. You won’t want to miss the opportunity to meet him again and ask questions. Linda will be in attendance as well. A full program agenda can be found here. We are so excited to bring these huge forces together in support of uniting of the medical and dental professions in better treatment for their patients and themselves.
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