The place of research in orthodontic education

I would suggest, therefore, that an initial academic qualification in orthodontics should be a Master's degree which should essentially be a clinical qualification, at a somewhat higher standard than the Royal Colleges' diplomas, but that it should include a research element of reasonable proportions. For the intending university teacher, a higher research degree will in future be essential and the obvious one is that of Doctor of Philosophy. This involves carrying out a piece of research which will make a contribution to knowledge, and the work is necessarily supervised by an experienced colleague. It is the standard method for learning about research, and like most things in life, research does have to be learnt, it is not an inborn capability. It may be that there is a place for a research Master's degree--an M.Phil. In London University, students may be registered for the M.Phil. which may be converted to registration for a Ph.D. if all goes well, but leaves something in hand if the student's work is curtailed. Several of our Senior Registrars have followed this procedure, which would have been useful if they had moved on earlier than expected. This leaves no place for the higher dental degrees: M.D.S. and D.D.S. (or D.D.Sc.). These are not normally supervised which perhaps makes them unsuitable as first research degrees. It may be that there is one degree too many and the M.D.S. should be phased out to leave the Doctor's degree as somewhat akin to the D.Sc. in pure science. Such an idea is not original.