Main description:

Education of the health professions have developed in a culture that does not promote interprofessional collaboration. They are independent careers with minimal crossover in either education or clinical practice.

A productive interprofessional collaboration will increase the efficacy of how healthcare is presented to and accepted by the public. For interprofessional healthcare to be effective we must learn how to work with each other, increase communication skills, balance responsibilities in patient care, resolve differences in modalities of treatment, and minimize power struggles. Only then will the provision of healthcare be applied to and seen through a collaborative lens.

The Oral Systemic Connection: A Collaborative, Interdisciplinary Clinical Companion for the Healthcare Provider provides knowledge of the clinical presentation, pathogenesis, and management of diseases that occur in the oral and maxillofacial area. The publication enables clinicians to recognize those oral health conditions which can be diagnosed on the basis of their pathognomonic clinical/radiographic presentation. The practitioner should then be able to develop a reasonable differential diagnosis, manage lesions which can be appropriately cared for by a medical or dental provider, and appropriately refer those lesions that require specialty management. Integration and application of the didactic material in a clinical setting will be stressed, and all material will be presented in a case-based format with lesions presenting from mild to significant disease when applicable.

The Oral Systemic Connection: A Collaborative, Interdisciplinary Clinical Companion for the Healthcare Provider:

Is suitable for healthcare providers who are not physicians and/or medical specialists (i.e., internal medicine, oncology, rheumatology) will learn to recognize the importance of oral health intervention on the behalf of their patients and become more confident in subsequent referral to or from physicians.
Fullfills a recognized need for a clinically relevant book on oral lesions and clinical outcomes for medical and dental general practice providers.
Presents oral pathology through a multidisciplinary lens in a case-based, evidence-based manner. The guiding question behind the content of the book is, if pathology is present, how do we treat the disease and how do we treat the person?
Educates medical providers on the basics of clinical oral pathology and oral medicine as well as on how to approach the patient in a holistic manner.
Integrates illustrations of general dentistry and oral health assessment approaches via simple objective and subjective data collection, case studies, clinical pictures, clinical scenarios, and outcome expectations for the patient.
Presents conditions alphabetically, starting with the name of the condition being discussed, its etiology, clinical presentation (both objective and subjective), age, sex, and race when these demographics are relevant, and general treatment modalities and prognosis.