Tashfeen Kholasi

Great to catch up with colleagues at the Clinical Safety Community practitioner course run by @NHSEngland Digital Clinical Safety Team - Thankyou @ajpcarr and Rudi Redford Brown for hosting an insightful meeting covering Medical Device regs , EHR , AI ,patient safety and more !

📖 Story time; A general dentist reflects upon a case of throat cancer A few years ago, at the practice which I now own, I was making my way down to reception with some papers. The receptionist was talking to a man at the front desk who was not a current patient. She explained that we didn’t have space for new NHS patients. The gentleman explained that he didn’t necessarily want to see someone about his teeth but about the big lump at the back of his throat. He had been to see the GP over the road who had advised him that “it’s probably a cyst, go and see a dentist” as whatever the problem was it was affecting the fit of his denture - red flag 🚩 I had a spare few minutes so invited the gentleman to come to my surgery so that I could “have a quick look” It was not a “quick look” Upon inspection I found that the patient had a firm lump extending down the right hand side of his pharynx from the soft palate. He had no gag reflex to speak of so I was able to palpate quite far down. That was the second red flag 🚩 When discussing the patient’s medical history we talked about his use of alcohol (100+ units per week, possibly more) and his use of tobacco (60 cigarettes per day). Red flag number three 🚩 The patient had also recently lost some weight unintentionally but had, understandably, put it down to the stress of looking after his elderly mother who was terminally ill. Red flag 🚩 4 I had heard enough and put in a call to the local Maxillofacial department and asked for him to be seen urgently. Dentists aren’t able to refer directly into ENT. Within days the patient called to inform us that it was cancer and to thank me for referring him. This gentleman wrote me a letter some months later to express his gratitude that I had “saved his life”. Of course, I had done no such thing, I had merely identified a substantial risk and referred him to the appropriate department. The treatment he received there was what saved him. There are several things to take away from this story (and absolutely no shade to be thrown on my very busy, capable but overstretched GP colleagues) 1) The GP was not able to identify whether this was a lesion of concern (why would they? They have about a one hour lecture on oral cancer or something, the mouth isn’t specifically their area, like it would be for say; a dentist) 2) The GP advised the patient to go and see a dentist (someone who is used to looking at mouths all day), but this patient did not have access to a dentist. Had he not been in the right place at the right time (the front desk of my practice while I happened to be taking paperwork down and have five mins spare to examine him) he might not have been looked at for much, much longer. He was in no pain and would be unlikely to be triaged as “urgent” when ringing any helplines. I have been the identifying/referring clinician several times through my career. I have cared for some of those patients when they have been well enough to come back to primary care. I have even referred some of my patients for skin lesions (on the face & head) which have been malignant. Oral cancer is often painless, unnoticed by the patient. Yes we must teach the public to self screen but where do they go then? GP colleagues are overstretched, NHS dental services are at breaking point. Who will direct these patients into the hospital? A&E would be wholly inappropriate. If you have made it this far, please know that I am not writing this to scare anyone or to virtue signal that I’ve picked up so many of these cases. I work in a deprived area, there is a correlation. There is so much more awareness that needs to be raised around head and neck cancer. The government, healthcare professionals and the public could all stand to know more. A good place to start is here: mouthcancerfoundation.org/mouth-cancer-f… November is a month for Mouth Cancer Awareness and blue is the colour we use to signify that Thank you for reading @TheBDA @MouthCancerMCF @TheBMA

Great to catch up with colleagues at @CGDent Scotland Study Day with Profs Shamir Mehta and Subir Banerji and Caldewell lecture delivered by the wonderfully insightful @jasonleitch . #Dentistry #DentalHealth #PublicHealth #Toothwear

Bill Sharpling presenting #bsgconference2023 calling for Clinical Dental Technicians to work with @Gerodontology to get benefits for older patients

Valuable day sharing lessons around ED and urgent care EPR use at @ImperialNHS with colleagues from @WUTHnhs and @wchc_nhs. Love it when our digital community are so open to sharing and learning with each other. Thank you to all involved for an insightful day 👏🏻

#UKFCI2023 @ UKFCI

An Absolutely brilliant Abstract and poster programme led by @WAngusWallace @ukfci Annual Scientific Conference , with best Abstract prize to @Nehal_Hassan_ 🥇 and poster prize 🥇to Jeremy Rogers. Thankyou to #NHSE CCIO Melanie Iles presenting the prizes. #UKFCI2023

Highlight of #UKFCI2023 @ukfci has to be @Maxi_Macki’s guest lecture on tackling bias and inequities in health and genomic Data. What a presentation and lift of energy at the end of the day. More Maxine please! I’m also now going to invest in some bright orange converse 👟🧡

Thank you to @Gerodontology and @GerryMcKenna_ for the invitation to present about why it’s vital to design NHS dental services based on user needs research #oralhealth #bsgconf2023 @NewcastleSDS @NIHRcommunity

Thankyou @rhidian_hurle for your insights - excellent session ! #UKFCI2023 @ukfci

Fantastic abstract session as part of the annual scientific conference @ukfci chaired by @WAngusWallace, Thankyou to all the judges too ! #UKFCI2023

Liz Barfield and Sebastian Alexander of @NHSEngland and Dean Mawson of DPM discuss #ClinicalSafety standards and the ISO14971 #UKFCI2023 @ukfci #UKFCI2023

Dr Rahul Goyal presenting at #UKFCI2023 annual scientific conference , fascinating insights and realisation of doing and delivering large scale #DigitalTransformation . Thankyou and chair @sarahpslight for holding an excellent session 👍 @ukfci

@ukfci discussing the Digital health governance #UKFCI2023

@Maxi_Macki talking diverse data and bias @ukfci ASC 2023 @GenomicsEngland #UKFCI2023

@ukfci ASC had a spot light on informatics in Wales ,Northern Ireland and Scotland . Thankyou to the panel @Nic_RD_AHP @rhidian_hurle and @quinnccio and chair Paul Curley for an excellent session #UKFCI2023

Very pleased to present my PhD work today and win the first prize for oral presentation @ukfci conference. @sarahpslight @rdslight @sarahwilson99_ @ClareLTolley @LaurenLawson98 and we got an official title for the team now " The Newcastle Mafia" 😀