Message Boards
Today's Active Topics Today's Active Cases Browse Forum Categories My Recent Activity My Messages Private Groups My Marked Threads My Subscriptions
Today's Active Images Today's Active Polls Most Active Topics Global Townie Map Advanced Message Board Search Message Board Terms of Use

Orthotown.com's Online Virtual Study Club

Start Discussion

Treatment Planning 2.0
“I Wonder How That Case Turned Out?”
Orthotown.com’s Online Virtual Study Club

by Wm. Randol Womack, DDS, Board Certified Orthodontist Editorial Director, Orthotown Magazine
One of the benefits of the Orthotown.com message boards is the opportunity to solicit advice from your peers for assistance in planning and/or treating cases. There are already a plethora of cases that have been posted on Orthotown.com over the past two years. I am sure the posting orthodontists were very appreciative of the responses and comments to their postings. But ever since we started Orthotown.com, in the back of my mind, I have wondered about what actually happens to these patients in terms of their treatment results after the initial posting.

I often pondered what a fantastic database of information orthodontists would have if we could see (and record for the future) the end result and know what treatment the posting doctor actually used in treating the case. When you look at general dental cases on other Web sites, the treating doctor can post the before and the after treatment because the procedures reach a conclusion in a few hours, or days or weeks. This is not the case for orthodontics.

The Arizona Orthodontic Study Group devotes one or two meetings a year to sitting around a table with six to eight fellow orthodontists to display patient records on a case for which we would like treatment feedback. On the last day of the year we bring a finished case to display for our colleagues. It’s a true study club environment.

I have always visualized the Orthotown message boards as a great opportunity to provide the same type of environment, only with a method of being able to display treatment records, globally, as cases progress over one or two years to the completion. With that in mind, and with a lot of effort, we present to you the Orthotown Virtual Study Club.

Our team has done a fantastic job of creating a forum on Orthotown.com where a case can be posted under a classification of malocclusion. That case is given a case name and an ID number for recall and sections for posting Beginning, Progress and Completion records. Now cases can be posted in the Virtual Study Club the same as they would be posted in the other areas of Orthotown.com. Posting in the Virtual Study Club will enable the treating doctor to post progress records and completion records – either on the first posting or as the case progresses. Then doctors who provide comments on the first or other postings will be able to “follow the progress” by noting the case name and/or case ID number and returning to the case to see how it actually finishes – even two years later. In addition, multiple cases can be found by keyword using the “Search” box function.

Here are some potential benefits to this enhancement of the Orthotown.com message boards:
  1. When viewing a case that has been posted in the Virtual Study Club, one can click the “Subscribe” tab and request e-mail notices to be sent to them when new activity is posted on the case.
  2. Posting doctors can continue to receive feedback from their colleagues about cases as they post progress treatment records (How am I doing so far? What would you suggest next?).
  3. As cases are posted with Beginning, Progress and Completion records, a database of treatment approaches and finishes will begin to accumulate.
  4. Younger orthodontists just starting in practice can not only receive feedback on their cases but they can also access the database of cases that will be accumulated in the Virtual Study Club. They can see how a cases similar to one they’re working on (which they might have never seen before) was actually treated by a colleague.
  5. Instructors in resident programs can access the Virtual Study Club database to show treatment problems and solutions to residents on cases that may not have presented in the clinics during the time of their education.
For those doctors who are frequent posters of cases, I would urge you to begin using the Virtual Study Club Forum to post your cases instead of the regular section of the Web site. This will give everyone – globally – an opportunity to view (and comment on) cases going into treatment and progressing to completion.

Here are some options:
  1. You may choose (as I did) to post all the records at the same time on a case that you have finished. Perhaps it is a case you posted originally a year or so ago that is now completed.
  2. Or you can re-post in the Virtual Study Club an original case (from a year ago) and now post the progress records of the case to get comments (which I also did).
  3. Or post a new case to get feedback and have the opportunity to return later to show how it is going.
I need to add that comments after each posting in the Virtual Study Club (Beginning, Progress and/or Completed) will remain for viewing later as the case progresses.

Whatever stage of treatment your case is in, it will benefit everyone who accesses Orthotown.com to have the case posted in the Virtual Study Club, even if it is just the original records and no more.

This enhancement will take time to mature and become fruitful, but I am convinced of its long-term benefit to the orthodontic profession. Its success will depend on those of you who are already active contributors and on the new doctors who may have not seen a value to posting cases because of little follow-up. The payoff for everyone is the ability to view a case, make note of the case ID and then return to the Virtual Study Club and enter the ID in the Search box to view any new postings and to learn from the opportunity this presents.























Orthotown Magazine
September 2025
Orthotown Magazine September 2025 Read Current Issue Read Archived Issues
Sponsors
Townie® Poll
Do you have a dedicated insurance coordinator in your office?
  
Site Menu
Message Boards Magazine Continuing Education Podcasts Blogs Classifieds News Events Townie® Poll Ebooks Townie Choice Awards
Company Info
Contact Us Advertise With Us Howard Farran DDS, MBA Policies and Agreements
Site Help
Sally Gross, Member Services Specialist
Phone: +1-480-445-9710
Email: sally@farranmedia.com
©2025 Orthotown, a division of Farran Media • All Rights Reserved
9633 S. 48th Street Suite 200 • Phoenix, AZ 85044 • Phone:+1-480-598-0001 • Fax:+1-480-598-3450