Chloé (left) works at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. She qualified as a dentist in 2013 and started orthodontics 6 years ago, in 2016. Even as a young child, Chloé always knew she wanted to be an orthodontist but the decision to specialise in cleft care came about whilst at university when learning about embryological development.  

A typical day at Addenbrooke’s Hospital for Chloé starts with a team briefing to discuss ongoing clinics with other dentists and nurses. The clinics will involve discussing treatment plans with patients and their families, taking records such as photos, moulds and scans, fitting braces to improve bites/ smiles or to prepare for surgery, adjusting braces that already fitted and removing them at the end of treatment. Multi-disciplinary sessions, when experts from all the areas involved in cleft care meet together to review patients’ progress and to discuss next steps, is also an opportunity to carry out bone graft assessments and to walk through some of the more complex treatment plans with other specialist clinicians.

During her visit to Bangladesh, Chloé spent the majority of her time with the local orthodontist, Mohammad Mahfuzul Gani, to review patients in care and problem-solving complex cases. Pictured below, Chloé and Mahfuzul examine Tuhin, a teenager with an atypical facial cleft (below left) who will need a number of operations including a bone graft and various orthodontic work. Above (banner image), Chloé treats Homaira who is also pictured below right, a young girl who was born with a cleft palate and experiencing speech difficulties. She was fitted with a small oral appliance prior to her palate lengthening surgery.

    

Dental hygiene is important for everyone, but for children born with clefts, having healthy teeth is particularly important. Teeth can grow in unusual places when the structure of the jaw is altered by the cleft, and so sometimes teeth can be difficult or even painful to access. The cleft patients seen in Dhaka were for the most part unable to afford healthcare by other means and often presented with poorly maintained dentitions and decayed teeth. This presents an additional challenge to meeting their orthodontic needs, with many children and adults requiring lengthy dental treatment even after successful surgeries.

By providing basic items such as toothbrushes and toothpaste thanks to donations made to CLEFT, as well as information on how to care for teeth and eat a healthier diet, the team in Bangladesh is working hard to improve dental problems from occurring before they happen. If you would like to support this important scheme, please click the donate button below.

    

Left: Orthodontist Mahfuzul checks an X-Ray with UK surgeon Patricia Rorison. Right: Mahfuzul treats a patient

The team in Bangladesh are trying to recruit a second orthodontist due to the large case load and they hope to have someone in place later this year.

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