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

Liz,
The lack of knowledge on OC is astounding!! Your case deserves to get international publicity.
It should be back to school time for those "expert" lawyers. They could come on here and read some of the histories! Of course this would probably be irrelevant to them as lawyers as these are "anecdotal."
As I have been fortunate to have had a completly opposite experience than you and Rob in that my dentist caught my OC at a very early stage. Therefore, I feel that I should contribute my efforts to this cause. I will gladly prepare a research paper on the importance of early detection of OC. (My original college work was in Political Science with a concentration on comparing statistical evidence of voting behavior. I never used that training, so this would be a good opportunity for me to make those years worthwhile.)
Whatever happens, just the fact that you have gotten so far and are bringing this into the public eye is very important. Please keep us up to date.
Malka

Wishing you the best, Malka

Liz,

Perhaps you need to tell them to include as their Expert Witnesses OC docs that will testify about the overwhelming benefits of early detection. If they can't find any in Europe then they can turn to the U.s. for help.

I personally would keep searching until I at least found a Firm that believed I had a good chance of prevailing.

Hi David,
i should have gone on to say that he finished the letter by saying they were very keen to take me on as a client and were confident of a successful outcome
my point really was the statement about the poor prognosis for mouth cancer sufferers,as if a diagnosis of oral cancer is an immediate death sentence,and the fact that he did not take it as read that if Robins cancer was undiagnosed for six months by a negligent dentist then of course it was instrumental in the outcome of his disease DUH!!!!
and he is supposed to be a dental negligence specialist.

liz

Liz,

I wish you luck and I'm sure you will stay on top of your "experts" and teach them as you go thru this. I'm proud and I'm sure Robbin is that you are not letting this malpractice go unchallenged. No one deserves to get this cancer and for sure if we are unfortunate enough to get it, then we expect the highly trained specialists we complain to to be able to point us in the right direction.

Liz, best of luck, and I can only imagine how you must have felt when you read those words.

I used to do a fair amount of medical negligence work, usually representing the doctor. (Keep in mind I am in the US, so my comments may not apply to your situation). Cancer cases used to be deemed very difficult ones as a whole, due to the need to prove that it was more probable than not that a different (and better) outcome would have resulted had the diagnosis been made in a more timely fashion. However, as the concept of some cancers as a chronic illness has taken root, palliative care has emerged as its own specialty, and overall treatment courses have radically improved, these cases have been viewed more favorably, as earlier diagnosis almost invariably results in a longer period of quality life, regardless of ultimate outcome.

Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

Liz:

Best of luck with your court cases. Its a shame that Robin's dentist wasnt more competent. Sounds like you are going to need to educate the 'educated experts'. Its so sad that people dont understand about OC.

Christine

Well, Liz, at least he did say "as far as my understanding goes" before revealing his ignorance! Obviously it doesn't go as far as it should. I am sure you will educate him more about the huge difference in survival rates when a cancer is detected early on. I wish you luck and strength to get through it.

Nelie

Liz, you go, girl!!! If you have to educate your own advocate, then so be it!

I, too, was misdiagnosed for EIGHT months. I thought about filing a suit, but since my own husband is a physician, I somehow was hesitant.

By the time it was clear to me that my dentist was, indeed, inadequately trained to recognize cancer even when it was large and classical (he diagnosed it as periodontal disease and cauterized it twice, without reading his own notes, and without once considering that it might be cancer. ) For that reason, my surgery was much more destructive than it might have been, including the necessity for a neck dissection, which caused its own grief.

Another argument, which of course is an element of your own argument, is that since my cancer had been allowed to grow undisturbed for so long, the chances for not only spread in situ but for metastasis was much greater.

My statute of limitations was one year, and I missed that date. I decided after that that I did indeed have a case and that I should file it, but it was too late.

If I have further problems, such as proveable metastasis or shortened lifespan, then perhaps my case will be different and I could file then, under a new time frame.

The reason i am persuing what Robin started is because this man has already been investigated by a governing body of his peers and found to be negligent in his actions.
On top of that he has consistently lied about what he saw in robs mouth on october 20th,which has been proved by a team of independant experts. This final stage is to decide what action they will take against him,in terms of his future fitness to practice.Once that has been decided i dont think the compensation case should be too difficult to prove.When rob was first seen at the cancer centre they said he had a 90% chance of a ten year survival but admitted the time wasted getting him to the hospital made things a bit less straight forward. what happened next seemed to come as a complete shock and in my eyes was a direct result of the delay in diagnosis and the aggressivness of the secondary tumour.

So my attitude is this.If the dentist had held his hands up and admitted he made a mistake ,i would have settled for the enquiry and an admonishment.But the lack of compassion and the lies he has told have made me good and mad now, and he needs to realise the consequences of his actions.

It sounds as if i will have a struggle on my hands with the total lack of factual and statistical information that the legal firms seem to have,but i am sure that Brian will be able to furnish me with any stuff i need to educate these ignoramuses.

In the uk we have a three year cut off for compensation claims so once i have the reports in my hands after the court case in september i will set things in motion.

In the mean time i need to work out a plan of action regarding these negligence solicitors who have no knowledge of the results of missed or misdiagnosis of oral cancer.

thanks for your support jeff and david and nelie and malka and christine .It is much appreciated as i worry if i am doing the right thing.And collen you are doing great so keep at it.

love liz