Scope
Oral medicine is concerned with clinical diagnosis and non-surgical management of non-dental pathologies affecting the oral and maxillofacial region, such as oral lichen planus, Behçet's disease and pemphigus vulgaris. Moreover, it involves the diagnosis and follow-up of pre-malignant lesions of the oral cavity, like leukoplakia or erythroplakia and of chronic and acute pain conditions such as paroxysmal neuralgias, continuous neuralgias, myofascial pain, atypical facial pain, autonomic cephalalgias, headaches and migraines. Another aspect of the field is managing the dental and oral condition of medically compromised patients. For example, cancer patients who suffer from related oral mucositis, bisphosphonate-related osteonecrosis of the jaws or oral pathology related to radiation therapy. Additionally, it is involved in the clinical diagnosis and management of dry mouth conditions, such as Sjögren's syndrome, and non-dental chronic orofacial pain conditions, such as burning mouth syndrome, trigeminal neuralgia and temporomandibular joint disorder.
The main facets of oral medicine are:
- Clinical care
- Research
- Undergraduate and postgraduate teaching
Read more about this topic: Oral Medicine
Famous quotes containing the word scope:
“Happy is that mother whose ability to help her children continues on from babyhood and manhood into maturity. Blessed is the son who need not leave his mother at the threshold of the world’s activities, but may always and everywhere have her blessing and her help. Thrice blessed are the son and the mother between whom there exists an association not only physical and affectional, but spiritual and intellectual, and broad and wise as is the scope of each being.”
—Lydia Hoyt Farmer (1842–1903)
“Every person is responsible for all the good within the scope of his abilities, and for no more, and none can tell whose sphere is the largest.”
—Gail Hamilton (1833–1896)
“For it is not the bare words but the scope of the writer that gives the true light, by which any writing is to be interpreted; and they that insist upon single texts, without considering the main design, can derive no thing from them clearly.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)