Webinar - ADA General Meeting - August 2020 - Dr Kim Gear - Vaping

"The Trojan Horse"

The Ministry of Health endorses e-cigarettes or vaping as a smoking cessation tool.  This lecture will focus on:

• The history of e-cigarettes/vaping
• How e-cigarettes/vaping work
• The current global trends in the uptake of e-cigarettes and vaping
• The research and evidence as it currently stands as to the effectiveness of e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool and its safety profile.

Presenter:  Dr Kim Gear

Oral Medicine Consultant

MMedSci, MBChB, BDS, BSC (Hons)

Kim is an Oral Medicine Consultant specialising in the diagnosis and management of oral manifestations of systemic disease.

Having completed a Science Degree majoring in Microbiology at the University of Otago in 1994, Kim also undertook a Dental Degree. This was followed by two years as an Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon at Waikato Hospital. Kim developed a particular interest in Head and Neck Cancers and proceeded to the University of Auckland Medical School in 2002, prior to completing her Master of Medical Science in Oral Medicine with a dissertation on the ‘Quality of Life in Patients treated for Head and Neck Malignancies’, in 2007.

Kim lectures for the undergraduate medical student teaching programme and is a reviewer for the Australian Dental Journal. Kim has also published in scientific journals and presents across the dental and medical sector on oral medical conditions. She has also recently been part of the University of Auckland Department of Surgery Research Group, studying the oral micro biome, and how it relates to the premalignant and malignant oral lesion, the influence of the oral microbiome in radiation therapy induced oral mucositis, and the analysis of HPV in oropharyngeal and oral malignancies.

Kim sees and manages general Oral Medicine clinical cases at MercyAscot Head and Neck Service with a particular interest in the area of Head and Neck Cancer.