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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!
Then the poor unsuspecting public are sent a ‘home kit’ with DIY instructions to allow them to take their own impressions on which clear aligners are made to ‘treat’ their malocclusion. No need for patient examination, no check of oral and dental health, or suitability for or appropriateness of treatment and no discussion of different methods and techniques for treatment. Just an internet purchase, bish, bash, bosh … aligners arrive through the post.
How have we allowed all this madness to happen? And what sort of professional future will all the young dentists have ahead of them? Certainly I doubt that they will have the extremely comfortable, well-respected and profitable lives that we have all been blessed with. The world is truly a different place. The consumers now demand everything but take little or no personal responsibility for any of it.
All I can advise young dentists and orthodontists to do is to ally themselves to professional colleagues who know how to ‘do the right thing’, and who have many clinical, long-term examples to demonstrate the excellence of their decision-making processes and their technical ability. Also, to keep up with the quality literature, which is the bedrock of our ‘evidence-based’ approach to treatment. And, finally, to pay no heed to the charlatans, and snake-oil salesmen who will try to persuade them that there is a ‘free lunch’ out there.
I think the onus is on all of us to set an example to the next generation, of what can be achieved by maintaining our clinical standards and professional integrity.