Postgraduate notes in orthodontics, 4th edition (2005)
Editors: Nikki Atack and Jonathan Sandy
Publisher: Division of Child Dental Health, Bristol Dental School, University of Bristol
Price: £50.00
ISBN: 0-86292-561-4
I had a nice feeling when I took the Postgraduate Notes in Orthodontics in my hands, taking me back to the past - those unforgettable years of graduate education for the specialization in orthodontics. Reading through the pages you can still feel the atmosphere of the preparation for the final examinations, and the effort of the authors to systematically organize the knowledge they gained during these years. As written in the foreword of the book, the Notes ‘started with humble beginnings as a way to fill the final three months of the first MSc/MOrth postgraduate orthodontic course in Bristol. After sitting the MOrth examinations it was felt that it would have been useful to have a concise text containing facts and supporting relevant references for use in those tense times before exams’. Since its first edition, in 1998, many past postgraduate students have obviously helped it to reach its present form.
The book is composed of two parts: The first, with 237 pages, is an overview of the literature that covers the vast majority of the theoretical and clinical subjects in orthodontics, where the authors, through a short and concise text, try to lay out the essence of different published studies that support or contradict clinical opinions. The second part is smaller, and contains 24 pages with over 100 questions and answers on a great variety of different clinical and theoretical topics.
In such a collective work the numerous chapters have been written by different authors, with a variation in their ambition level. Thus, there are chapters with balanced literature including both ‘old goodies’ as well as the more recent studies that appear in our journals. However, this is not always the case. In some topics the literature is not renewed, while in other cases the selection of the articles used for a certain subject is biased probably due to ‘local’ factors. Thus, for example, an important article such as the one that received the 2005 Solow Award is not included in the selected articles referred to in the section on treatment effects of extra-oral traction, while there are, in other sections, references based on old congress abstracts.
In general, whilst I found that Postgraduate Notes in Orthodontics may be further improved in the future, but it can be used now as a useful adjunct to the teaching of postgraduate orthodontics, both for the graduate students and their teachers.
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