Treatment goals and good records.

Greetings Friends! This is my favorite time of the year. Halloween looked like Mardi Gras in our neighborhood with parents pushing decorated baby carriages, hay rides pulled by 4 wheelers and pickup trucks loaded with trick or treaters anxious for a handout. I heard on the news that Halloween is the second largest consumer activity after Christmas. Wow! Santa always got into my hip pocket but who would guess that the Wicked Witch would come in second.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Our annual meeting in Ireland provided new contacts and adventure as well as an inspiring program for those who attended. There is a growing international interest in what we have to offer as an academy of orthopedics demonstrating the importance of organic occlusion and how it contributes to our well being. It is this organization's good fortune to have Dr. Conrad Sack directing sponsored research projects involving Crozat treatment and mechanics within a university setting. This opens an acceptable avenue that encourages traditional orthodontic education to take a second look at our finished cases. Treatment goals that we take for granted are completely foreign to many in conventional orthodontic education. What we experience with our finished cases--proper arch development and the small degree of relapse we encounter--is considered unachievable in the conventionally trained orthodontic literature.

I urge you to read the reprinted articles in this Journal realizing that the authors are drawing information from their professional background, available research and personal experience. They are smart people who are highly respected members of their profession and are dedicated to their patients' best interests.

If we can accomplish our treatment goals and our patients maintain their finished treatment, then we will be able to demonstrate what we have accomplished with records that can withstand scrutiny and inspire professional curiosity.

We can do this only through good records and follow-through impressions taken at intervals of time to demonstrate the percent relapse of our cases. We can then provide evidence-based results if we have a large enough sample.

I look forward to seeing you for lively professional fellowship and education in January. Please don't be absent.

David O. Olson, DDS