Orthodontist, speaker, human.
The same person in the practice, in the lecture room and on the written page. How I got here, what I learned along the way, and why orthodontics still surprises me.
"Medicine is Science, Art and Conscience"
Counts are approximate and refreshed now and then.
How it started
My contact with dentistry was an early one, as my father was also a dentist and I practically grew up "between teeth". But the concrete and applied contact started in 1994, when I entered university. Throughout this period I saw, learned and subsequently, I think, understood what a complete and correct dental service means, beyond the smokescreen of the industry's advertising.
In the 2000s, in Bucharest, any more enlightened practice had an advertisement with "Treatments Without Pain". In the 2010s that message had disappeared. In the 2020s it seems to be back. Messages adapt to the times, the reality being, according to an old Romanian proverb, "The same Mary with a different hat!"
That said, the approach I strive to have is one based on clinical observation, with the nitty-gritty details on the table and away from the marketing propaganda that tries to sell one product or another.
Sharing my current thinking about dentistry and orthodontics has become a passion I would have hardly guessed a few years ago. I like making connections between information from different fields — dentistry, orthodontics, neuroscience, human psychology, general medicine, physics and body building (they too work with muscles). All this, added to 15 years of general dentistry experience and 22 years of orthodontic experience by 2022, puts me in a position where I think I might have a broader perspective and understanding of the Dento-Maxillary Apparatus than I did when I finished dentistry school.
Medical deontology
Medical deontology is a concept that, for me, took shape as the answer to two questions:
1. What is the worst thing that can happen as a result of this therapeutic approach (extraction, non-extraction, palatal expansion, surgery and so on)?
2. If this patient were my own child, knowing everything I know today, would I choose this therapeutic approach?
I believe that if the answers to the questions above are satisfying for the doctor, then medical deontology is respected. But I also believe we owe it to our patients to keep evolving, to reduce the risks we expose them to — for each of us is someone's child.
I began my orthodontic activity in 2001 under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Dragoș Stanciu and Asst. Dr. Constantin Cojocaru, two names with a remarkable impact on the development of this field in Romania. Asst. Dr. Constantin Cojocaru was the first Romanian doctor to fit a fixed orthodontic appliance, sometime in the 1970s, and Prof. Dr. Dragoș Stanciu laid the foundations of fixed orthodontics at the Faculty of Dentistry of the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest.
Since then I have followed a series of specialisations across the diverse and varied world of Orthodontics. If I learned anything special in all these years, it is that "Orthodontics is Science and Art". "Conscience" is personal in nature and I do not think it can be taught — but I do believe that, under the right guidance, it can be cultivated.
Damon Ultima Founder
Together with 32 other European doctors, as the only one from Romania, I had the chance to be chosen by Ormco to be a pioneer of the Damon Ultima Bracket.
I will only say that it is the 7th Generation of the Damon Bracket just to give a perspective of the Research and Development that goes into it. For context most brackets have just one generation and rarely two.
A Damon-philosophy doctor
In 2016 I had the chance to get in touch with the work and philosophy of Dr. Dwight Damon. Although it was not easy to overcome 15 years of orthodontic thinking that today I would call classic, I am very happy with the choice I made.
It completely changed my perspective. I understand today that I was a prisoner of far too interventionist approaches — extractions, palatal expansion (controlled fractures of the maxillary bones), orthognathic surgery.
I think that palatal expansion is not needed at all, and that extractions and orthognathic surgery are indicated in a far narrower range of cases than I once thought.
Invited to become a Tweed Instructor
In June 2012 I had the pleasure to be at the Tweed Course in Tucson Arizona. We had a great Romanian team of doctors and it was the first year when Romania won the competition as the Best Table at Wire Bending of the course.
At the end of that course I received, from Dr. James Vaden, a Letter of Invitation to become a Tweed Instructor. I did not honor it for a variety of reasons but nevertheless, together with winning the competition, it made me feel proud to be Romanian.
I like children
I have always liked children, and especially coming down to their way of thinking. Despite this, when I left university I had no intention of focusing my practice on them.
I discovered the gift in my everyday practice, and in 2013 I decided to dedicate myself entirely to young patients and orthodontics.
I Love to Teach
Starting 2016 I started speaking to fellow doctors about my experience within the Damon Universe. It was a great experience as I was, and I still am and always will be, Master and Apprentice at the same time. I was myself discovering this wonderful approach to orthodontics.
Nothing teaches you better than explaining to others.
Orthodontics resident doctor
Between 2002-2005 I had the honour to take my first steps in orthodontics at the Dentistry Faculty of the Carol Davila University in Bucharest, under the guidance of two pioneers of Romanian orthodontics:
1. Prof. Univ. Dr. Dragoș Stanciu - from whom I learned that Orthodontics is Analysis, Calculation and Method - necessary things from a didactic point of view.
2. Asst. Univ. Dr. Constantin Cojocaru - from whom I learned that Orthodontics is Analysis, Invention and Adaptation - things anchored in clinical reality.
After my residency my path in orthodontic practice was strongly influenced by two other names, two Parisians, to whom the Romanian orthodontics after the year 2000 owes a huge debt: Prof. Dr. Andre Horn and Dr. Tudor Țovaru.
Lecturer
I had the real pleasure to be a lecturer at the Dentistry Faculty of The Carol Davila University in Bucharest, in the Department of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics, from 2002-2008. I say "real pleasure" because the experience I had on the other side of the Master-Apprentice relationship was a revealing one with two great challenges:
1. Finding solutions to explain a completely new subject to students, of whom I almost belonged, so that they would find it useful in their future practice.
2. To make the previous point as exciting as possible so that future doctors are left with more "Orthodontics" than "just for the exam".
I feel that this experience has strongly impacted my professional training in terms of communicating with the patient, especially from the perspective of patient awareness of why the recommended intervention is necessary.
I love what I do
In 2012, after 12 years of dentistry, children's dentistry and orthodontics, following a discussion with friends and colleagues about the work put in and the satisfaction it brought, I had a revelation: I love what I do.
Collaborations
