I attended a great continuing education course recently. The speaker was Dr. David Sarver, a widely acclaimed orthodontist from Alabama. The amount of orthodontics I do is extremely limited but the subject of his lecture was facial esthetics and I came away from it with a much greater appreciation for what well timed superior orthodontic treatment can accomplish. He spoke about what he termed Macro esthetics-meaning the entire face. This as opposed to Mini esthetics ( the smile ) and Micro esthetics ( the teeth ) is what we all should be concerned with. We can create beautiful looking teeth with all of our expertise and the wonderful materials at our disposal. We can create beautiful smiles with  teeth lined up symmetrically and in the correct position and proportions. But our ultimate goal after all should be to make people as beautiful as they can be. Facial proportions  have a great deal to do with how we all percieve beauty. Even though orthodontic movement of teeth can be accomplished at essentially any age, the timing of treatment during childhood growth phases dramatically enhances the orthodontists ability to affect change in the shape of ones face. To accomplish the same thing for a mature individual often requires surgery. Some of the results that Dr. Sarver demonstrated were nothing short of amazing. You just have to be able to recognize what can be done and make sure you are referred to an orthodontist with that same vision. Another concept that all good practitioners should aspire to is to treat to the ideal, not to the norm. In my office we never treatment plan cases to be just acceptable, we offer our patients the best possible treatment available. This is not to say we don't provide options for our patients. I realize that people have different goals regarding their dental treatment. When I sit down with my patients to discuss treatment options my primary goal is to educate them first regarding their health. Then, within that framework I discuss the different ways we can create a great looking smile. When I take a continuing education course like this one I come away from it extremely invigorated. Dentistry is really a great profession. We have the ability not only to get people healthy but to enhance their lives. It can be very gratifying.