The best continuing education.

How much time and money do you invest in continuing education annually to keep abreast of developments in orthodontics? In what venues do you find the most productive continuing educational experiences? As orthodontists, we have many opportunities to avail ourselves of new information. For example, you could read the AJO-DO monthly and advance your understanding of new findings in orthodontic research. Some clinicians prefer to attend state or constituent meetings to hear the latest speakers and visit with constituent colleagues. Still others attend the AAO Annual Session on a regular basis to be exposed to a wide variety of speakers from around the world. Or you could participate in one of the webinars that the AAO sponsors on a monthly basis on topics of interest to doctors and staff. Whatever your choice of venues, in all of these situations, you are the attendee and as such are trusting that the journal article that you read, the presentation that you hear, the webinar that you attend, or the clinical tip that a colleague shares with you is accurate and worth using to treat your patients. Should you trust all speakers at meetings? Or do you sometimes have the feeling that what is presented is too good to believe? How do you verify what is and is not worthwhile information? The only method of assessing the true value of new techniques or appliances or treatment systems is to test them on your patients. But how do you determine the effect of the treatment you render? You need to compare pretreatment and posttreatment records. Do you do this regularly? All orthodontists routinely take pretreatment records, including facial and intraoral photographs, dental casts (digital or stone), intraoral radiographs, and cephalometric radiographs. And nearly all orthodontists charge a fee for these pretreatment records, which they justify as necessary to properly diagnose the clinical problems and prescribe the appropriate solutions. But do you routinely take final records when you have completed the orthodontic treatment? Most orthodontists do not charge a fee for final records. After all, of what use are