My husbands dentist has been found guilty of failing to treat/diagnose his condition in a timely manner and on September 2nd he will appear before the Professional Conduct Committee during a three day hearing,where all the evidence will be heard and all Robs hospital records will be examined,opinions and testimony from independant experts will be submitted,and i have to go on the second day to tell my side of things.The panel will then deliberate and decide what action is to be taken against the dentist.

I have been advised to follow this up with a claim for compensation and to this end i decided to research some lawyers who specialise in negligence.I searched for a firm that had a specialist dental negligence team,and sent them a prelimenary enquiry.Below is an extract from the reply


As far as my understanding goes, the prognosis for cancer of the mouth is not good. To be successful in an action of negligence against the dentist, we would need to prove that the delay in the treatment of your husband's condition was the cause of his passing on, rather than the already poor prognosis due to the mouth cancer.



When i read this passage my heart just sunk like a stone as i realised that no matter how hard we all work ,no matter how much
we all try,no matter how much time Brian Hill and Dr.Vinod Joshi(english Mouth Cancer Forum director)give to spreading awareness of mouth cancer we are still faced on a daily basis with ignorance and lack of informed experts.

While searching the internet for a so called Dental negligence specialist,i looked at dozens of medical negligence firms.
In their options menu i found the heading "Cancer -missed or delayed diagnosis" so i duly clicked on these links.After the third search,it slowly dawned on me that i wasn't going to find Mouth Cancer on the list of cancers they deal with.

Every firm went into the same spiel about missed or late diagnosis in

Breast Cancer
Colon Cancer
Testicular Cancer
Prostate cancer
Cervical Cancer
Lung Cancer

Just about every cancer you can name but not one single firm even mentioned Mouth Cancer.

My conclusion from this is that not much has changed in the nearly two years i have been involved with this disease,and once again ignorance seems to be the biggest hurdle.

The solicitor i approached went on to say that his firm were keen to take the case and were confident of a succesful outcome,but his statement above is not very reassuring,and in my eyes it is down right worrying.
This man is a specialist professional in Dental Negligence and his statement above is in my opinion born of a lack of knowledge regarding the condition.

On Monday evening i got a phone call from a lawyer at the firm who are preparing the case on behalf of the General Dental Council.They are a top London firm who specialise in prosecuting medical negligence cases on behalf of professional governing bodies that have found their employees to be defective in their treatment of patients,and when i asked him if he had any experience with mouth cancer cases he said " oh yes,i had one last year".
My question is "should we be targeting these people with the facts on mouth cancer"?.should we be supplying information about diagnosis,treatment,prognosis facts on survival rates,quality of life after treatment,recurrance rates,success stories?

They are meant to be protecting those who suffer from a poor standard of care,and yet they don't seem to know anything factual about Mouth Cancer.

Sorry this has gone on so long,but i am all fired up and i would like to know what you all think.

love liz