Voices from the community--experiences from the dental office: initiating oral cancer screening.

An important objective of the British Columbia Oral Cancer Prevention Program (BC OCPP) is to promote dialogue among community dental professionals about their experiences with oral cancer screening. To begin this effort in British Columbia, we conducted 2 focus groups in February 2007 involving 12 dental professionals (dentists, dental hygienists and dental assistants) from well-established dental offices in the Greater Vancouver area. The staff in these offices had previously participated in a 1-day oral cancer screening workshop in September 2006 that included a review of risk factors, procedures for conducting screening examinations and a hands-on clinical session with volunteer patients presenting with highgrade dysplasia or squamous cell carcinoma. The purpose of the follow-up focus groups was to learn about the team’s experiences with oral cancer screening since attending the workshop. In this article, we share the views of these dental professionals about integrating screening into their practice, summarize their concerns and solutions, and establish what efforts are required to support this initiative.