After a busy day of orthodontic treatments, I was in the practice one evening doing some treatment planning for the patients that would be coming in later that week and the phone rang with Prof Stassen’s name on the screen.
As he does the jaw surgery and other special procedures for my patients that need them, I’d always take the call when I get it because it usually means something needs to be discussed in detail and I’ll have to make special appointments and the quicker I know what I have to do the quicker I can help my patients. In this case it was “remember that patient you’d sent in…well I did a biopsy and it came back as squamous cell carcinoma.” This was staggering news, I sat down in a different chair to have the conversation but it wasn’t a long one. Once Prof Stassen had a diagnosis, he’d arranged a referral with the head and neck unit of an appropriate hospital to provide comprehensive treatment – which would be expedited because the diagnosis had been made.
I think if I’d sent the original referral directly to the hospital, even with the photos, the time to get to this point would have been longer. It was great to have the long standing connection with a surgeon who knew me well enough to take notice of the contact and the material and make a decision and then he knew what to do to get a diagnosis that would move the patient to the next stage of their treatment.
I met with the patient’s father the next day and we took their braces off a couple of days later and we’ll pick up the treatment when they’re through all of this but right now the priority is the best treatment for the tumour.