It's official … the world has gone completely mad!

Starting in the summer when the Great British people spoke … and voted for Brexit. A devastating day for many of us who value enormously our links with our European friends and neighbours. This led me, and apparently tens of thousands of other eligible citizens, to apply for an Irish Passport to retain our European citizenship.

The madness then climaxed when Donald J Trump became President elect on November 8th 2016. In the land of opportunity, where apparently anybody can become the President … they have certainly demonstrated that this is in fact the case! Goodness knows what the next four years holds for us all.

Lunacy also abounds in our own chosen specialty, with the recent ‘Uberization of Orthodontics’. I would recommend that all of you read the guest editorial by our best known Restorative Dentist, and popular polemicist, Mr Martin Kelleher, who eloquently describes in great detail the ‘race to the bottom’ in orthodontics. Out of all the crazy fads currently being promoted: the 6-month smiles, the 3-month smiles, Fast Braces, the endless quest for the cheapest, fastest perceived solution, to an often perceived problem, the one that currently ‘takes the biscuit’ has to be ‘The Smile Direct Club’ smiledirectclub.com/smile_assessment. With this ‘latest and best’ technique, not only is the orthodontist completely cut out of the equation … but so is the general dentist. The potential patients take their own iPhone pictures of their teeth (God knows, it takes me three years to get my postgraduates to take decent pictures, with me on their case on a daily basis) and submit them to see if they are eligible for treatment. Remarkably, they almost always are!