About the Lecture:
Title: "Oral-systemic disease: What needs to change?"
Thursday, September 10, at 4:00 PM on the Main Stage
Summary:
As our understanding of connections between oral pathogens and systemic diseases broadens and deepens, what should we be teaching today’s medical and dental students? What do doctors and other health care professionals need to know? How should we do healthcare differently? What health messages should we be sharing with politicians, journalists, and the public?
Dr. Lloyd-Jones will present a challenge to our current use of language and a call to collaborate to shift current paradigms in medicine and our understanding of the importance of oral biology.
Learning Objectives:
- Anatomy: To deepen understanding of the anatomical connections between the mouth and the whole human body. (anatomical routes and physical immune barriers)
- The mouth as the missing link: To understand the mouth as an immune organ bridging our body with our environment, and how oral pathogens are directly implicated in multiple important disease mechanisms.
- Language: To explore why language relating to causation should be both more direct and more refined – leading to the concepts of pathological evolutionary feedback loops and systemic ecosystem diseases.
Practical Applications:
- Health messages: Modify the language you use when communicating with patients, influential public figures, and other healthcare professionals
- Oral care is more than teeth: Broaden the stance that oral health is only about dentistry and personal oral hygiene – every factor that alters your patients’ oral microbial environment matters (smoking, diet, sleep, exercise, hormonal changes, drug use, socialization etc.)
- Collaborate: Actively seek opportunities to collaborate with healthcare and research professionals outside your speciality to
- i) educate that the mouth comes first,
- ii) improve connectedness of clinical pathways, and
- iii) highlight that prevention is better than treatment
Method: Lecture
Cost: Included in the Annual Session 2026 ticket
Location: New Orleans, LA
AGD Course Code: 490
AAOSH Core Curriculum: Success for the Oral Systemic Practice
Credit Hours: 1