Elledge Informatics Limited Digital solutions to organic problems

Ross Elledge is a Consultant Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon based in the West Midlands and also the Director of Elledge Informatics Limited, developing XEDAQ.

He began his journey in 1998 when he entered dental school on the island of Malta where he was raised. After completing his undergraduate degree, he worked as a dentist for a short time but quickly decided it was not for him.

Ross emigrated to the United Kingdom in 2005, settling first in the West of Scotland and undertaking junior jobs in a variety of dental specialties. This enabled him to get a taste of hospital life as he started working in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, quickly recognising the significant impact specialists in the field had on patients, restoring them to form and function following life-changing events and diagnoses.

In 2007, Ross began an accelerated medical degree at the University of Birmingham. He finished in 2010, coming first in his year and being awarded both the Sir Arthur Thomson Gold Medal and the Chancellor's Prize, the latter awarded annually for outstanding achievement and contributions to the general life of the University.

Ross completed junior doctors jobs and embarked upon higher surgical training in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in 2013 in the West Midlands, finishing with Fellowships in Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery and the Management of Skin Cancer in Nottingham and Leeds respectively. Since 2018 he has held the post of Consultant Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon and Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, where he has subspecialty interests in skin cancer and temporomandibular joint surgery. In the latter field, he is one of only a handful of surgeons nationally performing the full remit of surgeries, including arthroscopic surgery and total alloplastic joint replacement with custom implants.

He aims to be progressive in his field and as a Member of the European Society of TMJ Surgeons (ESTMJS), he has attended educational events internationally to further his skills and stay on top of the latest developments. He is an Associate Editor for the British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and formerly the TMJ SSIG Lead nationally for the British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (BAOMS).

During his training, Ross has had a sideline interest in the power of education, completing a Masters in Medical Education (MMedEd) with the Centre for Medical Education at the University of Dundee with distinction. His thesis focused on virtual learning environments (VLEs) and he has since published work on flipped classroom learning, harnessing the power of technology to augment professional development.

Alongside this, Ross developed an interest in Arisotelian ethics and the place of character reformation in surgical training, publishing peer reviewed papers on this interest. Since June 2020, he has been the regional Education Lead for higher surgical trainees in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, developing the surgeons of tomorrow.

More recently, Ross has been carrying out research on developing a predictor rule for the likelihood of facial fractures on plain film imaging as part of a doctoral degree (MD) with the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing at the University of Birmingham.

This recognition of the power of education and the potential of technology, combined with an eye for the place of virtue ethics in modern medicine have all informed his interest in the latest venture of developing digital solutions for organic problems. The final piece in the puzzle has been the many thousands of patients he has seen and treated, who have shown a steady upwards trajectory in being informed and utilising the digital resources that are now readily available at the push of a button.