Member spotlight: Meet passionate oral health advocate Dr Mark Wotherspoon

3 August 2022

Dr Mark Wotherspoon is an inventive solver, creating a better hygiene system for dental devices, advocating for better aged care, and developing a mobile dental clinic to best service his home city of Wagga Wagga.

WHAT FIRST BROUGHT YOU TO CHOOSE DENTISTRY AS YOUR PROFESSION?

Actually, when in High School I really wanted to be a golf professional, but found out fairly early I wasn’t anywhere good enough. However I was also working Saturday nights as a glass-boy at the greyhound track in Perth, and one of the barmen was a second-year dental student who would let me read his text books when business was slow. Then I had a most inspiring conversation with the legendary WA oral surgeon – Prof. David Booth – at a university orientation day and as they say, the rest is history. I like dentistry because it is science, problem solving, killing bad germs, preventing disease, fixing things and helping people – could it get any better?

YOU HAVE BEEN A PASSIONATE ADVOCATE FOR ORAL HEALTH, PREVENTIVE CARE AND THE ROLE THAT HYGIENE PLAYS IN THIS. HOW DID YOU FIND YOURSELF DOWN THAT PATH?

Modern dentistry is truly awesome. Almost any tooth can be saved or replaced; function and aesthetics can be closely predetermined and planned by combining knowledge, experience and digital technology… exciting times indeed. The challenge is to keep all of this affordable for the majority and, for those who can’t afford treatment, then it is imperative we have a robust public system. However, prevention is the key: oral hygiene, plaque control, educating the general public to the direct link between oral health and general health is by far the best way to improve quality of life for ALL people, regardless of their dental budget.

WE CAN SEE THAT THIS WOULD HAVE LED TO YOUR INVENTION, THE HYGENIE. WHAT HAS IT BEEN LIKE, PRACTICALLY SPEAKING, INVENTING A NEW APPARATUS IN THE ORAL HEALTH SPACE IN AUSTRALIA?

You only have to be in the dental profession a short while to know there is a problem with home care and plaque control for dentures, splints, sports mouthguards and orthodontic retainers. I put together a team including dentists, hygienists, scientists, industrial and graphic designers to engineer a choice of far more effcient and easy-to-use brushing options and a soap-based sanitising gel. All products needed to be recyclable and readily affordable. This took three years and more than 10 iterations before we were satisfied and ready to further develop for mass manufacture and the dental market. This took another two years before we launched at the end of 2019 (you can see these products at drmarkshygenie.com and hygeniesport.com).

Ideally dental practices would provide these hygiene products when the appliances are issued or as part

of the routine preventive maintenance for patients, but also be available via retail outlets. Our company’s goal is to significantly improve the plaque control and safe [less dropping] home care of all removable appliances and thereby improve oral health and general health… and smell better too!

YOU ARE THE ADJUNCT SENIOR LECTURER AND CLINICAL LEADER AT CHARLES STURT UNIVERSITY IN PORTABLE DENTISTRY. TELL US ABOUT YOUR OWN MOBILE CLINIC?

Dentist To Your Door is the name of my portable dental service that I work out of Best St Dental and it is by far and away the most professionally satisfying work I have ever done. Actually with very little capital outlay and a small amount of planning, you can continue to support and treat your existing loyal patients as they transition from independent to dependent living. Modern lightweight, portable equipment and digital technology means you can easily and safely provide basic diagnostic, preventive and restorative (ART) services to your patients in their own facility bed or specialised chair and in the comfort and privacy of their own room. After working in the public service, military service, corrective services and over 25 years of private practice, I became very aware that travel to a fixed clinic was very diffcult or totally impracticable for many of our own patients after an ‘event’, so just when they really needed and wanted more oral health and hygiene support, nothing – and I mean

nothing – was available. After a financial analysis and the application of some basic but disciplined practice management guidelines, our local, financially viable portable service commenced – and best of all, equipment fits in the boot of my car.

AGED CARE IS CERTAINLY AN AREA THAT HAS (PERHAPS FORTUNATELY) COME UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT IN THE PAST FEW YEARS, THANKS TO THE ROYAL COMMISSION AND THE SUBSEQUENT

MEDIA ATTENTION. WHAT IS YOUR OWN PERSPECTIVE ON THIS, FROM THE ‘TRENCHES’?

Often – but not always – as our patients age, the mouth dries out, dexterity reduces, diet increases in refined

sugars and numerous other factors combine to contribute to poor oral hygiene therefore poor oral health, leading therefore to poor general health and reduced quality of life. Our elderly citizens are not being cared for and supported with the respect and dignity they deserve, and many are very happy to pay for a service but the service does not exist, and quite frankly our profession doesn’t seem to care. The Silver Wave has arrived – let’s not pretend it hasn’t or that it is someone else’s problem.

WHAT IS IT LIKE TO LIVE AND WORK IN A REGIONAL CENTRE, ESPECIALLY AS IT PERTAINS TO AGED CARE?

I simply can’t explain how wonderful it is to work and live in regional NSW, and Wagga Wagga in particular. If you drive for 20 mins in any direction from the centre of town you are in the rolling countryside, and with six short flights a day to Sydney, three flights to Melbourne and even regular flights to Brisbane, Charles Sturt University, two large military bases and surrounded by a very rich and diverse agricultural industry, the economy is strong and resilient. Education, health, recreational facilities are all five star, and being a health service provider in Wagga Wagga has been very kind to me and my family.

Providing an extended portable private practice service beyond the fixed surgery just seems like a natural

progression for continuity of care, and I look forward to the day that every fixed surgery, private and public, has

some portable capacity. My financial model shows that if all practices provided a portable service half a day per

fortnight, then the aged care dilemma is solved – AND it is financially viable and sustainable.

IF YOU COULD SEE ANY NEW INITIATIVE HAPPEN IN THE AREA OF AUSTRALIAN ORAL CARE, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

We really need to turbo-charge our efforts to improve the general public’s understanding of the link between oral hygiene and oral health, to general health and quality of life. A classic example is that sports mouthguards are often never washed properly before being stored, growing toxic moulds in the bottom of a sports bag – and nobody seems to care that this has been linked to respiratory disease and

asthma for many years now.

Next time you issue a sports mouthguard, or any removable appliance, we must spend an extra 60 seconds educating the wearer as to the ADA guidelines or Therapeutic Guidelines for home care and then actually provide them the best products to perform this home care.

One of the best experiences of my life was delivering a mouthguard hygiene presentation to the Melbourne Rebels W professional rugby team down in the High Performance Centre, AAMI stadium in Melbourne. This group of truly amazing women took the message very seriously but there was also a lot – and I mean a lot – of laughter. I was truly inspired by the camaraderie and professionalism of these elite athletes and can’t wait to go back and support the oral health message again next season.

/ADA Public Release. View in full here.