Publications by authors named "Melanie L Simms"

Introduction Chairside teaching is an important part of dental undergraduate clinical education. Bedside teaching is well-reported in relation to undergraduate medicine but few publications relate to undergraduate dentistry.Aims and objectives To investigate the experience and benefits from chairside teaching/learning in the clinical years of a five-year dental programme in a UK university.

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Introduction This service evaluation reviewed how the inclusion of photographs in dentist referrals to an oral medicine specialist service can improve the service for triage, prioritisation and diagnosis.Materials and methods Data were prospectively collected from e-referrals over a four-month period. Any change in appointment prioritisation resulting from review of photographs at the vetting stage was recorded.

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Introduction: Dental students should graduate from undergraduate programmes with the knowledge and skills to safely manage patients. This requires exposure to patients with a range of medical needs, which may impact the planning and delivery of care.

Aims And Objectives: We wished to establish the medical history complexity of patients presenting to student restorative clinics and compare them to patients attending a dental emergency clinic.

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Objective: The purpose of this study was to identify all outcome domains used in clinical studies of xerostomia, that is, subjective sensation of dry mouth. This study is part of the extended project "World Workshop on Oral Medicine Outcomes Initiative for the Direction of Research" to develop a core outcome set for dry mouth.

Study Design: A systematic review was performed on MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials databases.

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Objective: To identify all outcome measures used to assess salivary gland hypofunction (i.e., objective measures used to determine actual changes in saliva quantity or to assess response to treatment of salivary gland hypofunction) and to group these into domains.

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Introduction In March 2020, a cohort of dental foundation trainees (DFTs) were affected by the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, in September 2020, a second cohort of DFTs began their training, with COVID-19 still affecting provision of primary dental care.Aims To study the effects of COVID-19 on these two cohorts by surveying Wales' dental core trainees (DCTs) who had been undertaking dental foundation training (DFTg) in 2019/20 and 2020/21.

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Objective: We conducted a qualitative study of patients' perspectives on dry mouth outcomes to explore their personal experiences and investigate which outcomes are most important to them. This work was part of the WONDER initiative (World Workshop on Oral Medicine Outcomes Initiative for the Direction of Research) exploring Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials.

Study Design: Using a study-specific topic guide, we conducted digitally recorded, semi-structured interviews of focus groups of patients with dry mouth secondary to Sjögren syndrome and head and neck radiotherapy.

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Objective: This study aimed to develop a consensus-based core outcome set (COS) to be used in clinical trials assessing dry mouth interventions.

Study Design: Through 2 systematic literature reviews and interviews with dry mouth patients, we identified relevant outcome domains for dry mouth assessment. A Delphi survey was presented to health care providers attending the American Academy of Oral Medicine annual meeting in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, on May 2022 (n = 104) and 10 dry mouth patients at Cork University Dental School and Hospital, Republic of Ireland.

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Introduction This study looks at the amount of oral medicine activity in oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMFS) units in both South East Wales and South West England, and to consider the development of training programmes in oral medicine and OMFS, to determine how to best deliver a service which would benefit patients with oral medicine diagnoses.Materials and methods Following institutional approvals, local OMFS units in South East Wales and South West England collected data from OMFS outpatient clinics to determine what proportion of patient diagnoses fell within the scope of practice of oral medicine.Results In South East Wales in 2017, patients with oral medicine diagnoses formed 45% of total outpatient activity in OMFS outpatient clinics compared to 37% of patients in the South West of England in 2021.

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Introduction: Paediatric dentists care for children who are medically compromised and with an orofacial disease; therefore, trainees need appropriate training in these areas. The prevalence of congenital and chronic diseases in children is increasing, and future specialists need an understanding of human health and disease and oral medicine. This study aimed to determine if current teaching and assessments were fulfilling these requirements.

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Introduction: Dental undergraduates typically learn and are assessed on aspects of human disease (HD) in the early part of their programme, but it is not until later in the programme that their HD knowledge is put into practice when they provide courses of treatment for numerous patients over multiple visits. The teaching of HD provides core knowledge on medical conditions and medications and is therefore essential in allowing newly graduated dentists to provide safe treatment for medically compromised patients or those taking medications. We wanted to examine the medical complexity of patients attending a university hospital dental emergency clinic to determine whether this was a suitable group that would help students to consolidate their HD learning in the context of a single visit where treatment was also provided.

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Treatment of orofacial granulomatosis (OFG) is difficult and unpredictable, and currently there is not a treatment with guaranteed success. Macrolides have been suggested to give dramatic improvements in idiopathic OFG; however, this was not our experience. Following on from remarkable findings with weekly azithromycin pulse therapy reported in JAMA Dermatology, 2015, we treated 5 male patients with idiopathic OFG with the same regimen.

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