title: Referrals in oral medicine.
abstract: This invited article offers dentists and dental care professionals an understanding of the most appropriate and effective way of referring patients for specialist care in oral medicine, hence enabling them to offer more effective care to patients, as well as avoiding misunderstandings.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Referrals to a specialist can help patient management, particularly for patients who may have malignant disease (or potentially malignant disease); a complicated or serious non-malignant diagnosis (such as HIV disease or pemphigus); a requirement for treatment with potent agents or complicated equipment; extra-oral lesions; or disease that is unresponsive to treatment. It can also be useful where there is a diagnosis that is in some doubt, or a situation when the clinician (or patient) requests a second opinion or wishes to share care with the specialist.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Medicine, UCL, Eastman Dental Institute, 256 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1X 8LD, UK.
authors.forename: Crispian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Scully
authors.forename: Stephen R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Porter
mesh_terms: D015709:Correspondence as Topic; D006801:Humans; D009062:Mouth Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis; D019242:Oral Medicine; D012017:Referral and Consultation