40 Years of History
It is a great honor and privilege for me to write these lines on the occasion of celebrating 40 years of history of the Angle Orthodontist Study Group, a pioneering initiative in Orthodontics for the State of Parana and nationwide. Over four decades, we have stuck to the steady and strong principles leading to the Angle Study Group’s creation, to promote the study and later development of national Orthodontics providing technical refreshing training to local professionals.
With a well-defined focus, we have arranged and promoted our institutional meetings without fail throughout the years, offering about 160 scientific meetings, all designed to bring out the industry’s latest developments and innovations and counting on the presence of local and internationally renowned professionals.
In such a manner, we were able to put Angle Study Group’s guidelines into practice, while promoting and qualifying its representatives to achieve excellence in the performance of Orthodontic care, having the following trinomial as basic grounds for its clinical and academic practice: knowledge, respect and ethics.
Always focused on innovation and looking forward, we make sure future professionals, current students of many Graduate programs offered by Universities in the State of Paraná, are treated with love and respect, so they can share with us the same ethical principles inherent to this profession.
Our pioneering efforts resulted in enormous recognition of the Angle Group before the prestigious Brazilian Scientific community, arising from the profound respect with which our work is seen by our peers. I might even dare to say that it is virtually impossible for a recognized Brazilian professor not to have attended at least one of the meetings organized by our Group, or not having heard of our existence and strong principles.
Notorious individuals have joined the Angle Group’s team. Among those who have left us, I could not fail to mention Professor Roberto Seiler de Camargo, the founding partner of our Group, deceased in 2009 and someone I see as the backbone of our institution. He shall be always remembered as the foundation for the Angle Group’s creation and the development of local Orthodontics, a respectful man that even after being older than 80-years was still concerned in remaining an organized and collaborative professional, not forgetting to keep faithful to his ethical principles, and devoting his entire life to his family and career.
After reviewing 40 years of activities, not only a sense of continuity comes to my mind but also the further developments of Orthodontics in the coming 40, 50 or even 60 years. Evidently, we cannot fail to remember all this progress is intimately related to the actions performed by the Angle Group.
From now on, I believe we will have a hard battle to fight if we wish to keep promoting and repositioning Orthodontics into its proper scientific place. In addition, it is our job to prevent that enterprises, professionals, establishments and all sort of dealers see our activity as an easy and immediate source of profit, without respect to our basic principles.
In that sense, I believe we have a special mission to accomplish in the decades to come: to carry on as a strategic meeting point of the highest quality Orthodontic care.
This translates into holding on to the quality of the care we offer, not surrendering to commercial, corporate and institutional pressures or to the so-called market rules. In other words, never giving up on fighting for patients to receive the best care possible, using our expertise.
If someone questioned me today about the future of Orthodontics in regards to techniques and materials, I would be honest enough to say that I do not know the answers. However, if the inquiry was related to ethics and how relevant this principle can be in our daily lives, I could not emphasize it enough that the future of Orthodontics lies in returning back to the past, when ethical practices were more appreciated than profit alone and the patient always came first.
Thinking of a promising future guided by ethical and respectful practices, I say goodbye, wishing for another exciting and successful 40 years!
Thank you,
Vladimir Cerci (Effective Angle Group Member)
