Solidarity with Europe?

In 2008, the Network of Erasmus Based European Orthodontic Programmes (NEBEOP) was formed as an initiative of Professors Anne Marie Kuijpers Jagtmann and Stavros Kiliarides to allow exchange of information, opinions and ideas on orthodontic training requirements. Over the last 10 years, NEBEOP has accredited 26 European Orthodontic Programmes as having met the requirements of the Erasmus Programme (EJO 2014). Professor Ama Johal is to be congratulated for obtaining Full NEBEOP Membership for the Royal London Orthodontic Programme and I am delighted to say that Sheffield University are ready for a visitation and will hopefully be the second UK School to be fully approved.

The long term benefit to the specialty, and ultimately to the public, is that it will standardize the quality of orthodontic training programmes throughout Europe and this will allow easy recognition to both the profession and to the public of the ones that fulfil all the demanding requirements for a ‘Gold Standard’ training. This is partly in response to the rogue Masters Programmes popping up, all over Europe, which purport to provide ‘kosher’ training and qualifications but, on closer scrutiny, would fall well short of the mark, particularly in the area of closely supervised and hands-on clinical training.