In this VELscope Hero Vlog Spotlight, Susan Cotten, RDH shares her oral cancer journey with her favorite patient, the transformative trajectory, and her Cotten Method of Screening.

Everyday Hero – Susan Cotten, RDH

Approximately 54,000 Americans will be diagnosed this year alone with oral or oralpharyngeal cancer. That’s 147 every day and six every hour. And in five years only a little more than half of those diagnosed will survive this horrific disease.

• And quite possibly that could be one of your patients or a loved one.

You can have an enormous effect on whether someone lives or dies. I’m Susan Cotten, I’m a registered dental hygienist and I run a company called oral cancer consulting.

And it’s my goal to see that every patient, every visit is screened thoroughly for early detection and prevention as a dental hygienist.

I understand the demands of your day.

You’re pressured for time and the demands of running a practice. And it’s easy to skip the oral cancer screening.

And at one time in my hygiene career, I was in those shoes too.

Looking back, I often wonder how often did I miss a lesion because I didn’t look or a symptom of oral cancer because I didn’t ask.

It changed my life and my clinical priorities, and I knew I could never cut short or eliminate this life saving procedure ever again.

It was my favorite patient who is was diagnosed with HPV Oralpharyngeal Cancer.

It changed my life and my clinical priorities, and I knew I could never cut short or eliminate this life saving procedure ever again.

And it sent me on a trajectory to help every dentist and hygienist in the world. So they would never have to feel like that or perhaps be brought into litigation because they didn’t know.

So in 2017, I created the Cotten Method of Screening. It’s an easy to learn and easy to implement method of screening and hygienists and dentists that implement the Cotton Method often share how confident, thorough, and efficient they are in screening.

And you can find a downloadable principle guide outlining the Cotten Method on my website, oralcancerconsulting.com.

Now your next best steps are to know the etiologies, the additional risk factors and the signs and symptoms associated with oral and oral pharyngeal cancer and to become confident in screening.

And when the time is right…

I would love to bring the cotton method training to your office or your DSO.

I believe that when you implement the Cotten Method and VELscope you will be providing an optimal screening for your patients.

And there is no better feeling than to know that you have played a part and saving a person’s life.