[Budmano786]

Bruinrab...it seems like you may not want to, but you can you elaborate on what your position is on non-reconstructive procedures? For example, nose jobs, breast augmentation, etc...procedures that are done purely out of dislike of their own anatomy that is already "within normal limits" and functional to begin with.

As far as braces go, I'm trying to solidify my position on it. There are definitely patients who present to the orthodontist who want their teeth fine-tuned and perfected. You can make an argument saying that severely crooked teeth are unnatural and therefore you are fixing something that was wrong to begin with...but then the question comes, its very rare to have perfectly aligned teeth...so how crooked is crooked enough to justify braces? I would agree that several patients that present to the orthodontist have perfectly functional and "esthetically" pleasing smiles (although this is very subjective)...but they want that last little bit of alignment to perfect it. So would this be considered cosmetic and unnecessary?

You can take it a step further...patients come in who have deep overbites where their upper teeth stick out further than their bottom teeth...and some patietns who have underbites where their lower teeth are outside their top teeth. These are often due to skeletal discrepancies where the upper and lower jaw sizes are not proportional. The thing is...its often familial so their parents will come in looking like that. Their bite is "off" according to what the defined orthodontic treatment goals are...but reality is, their bite won't kill them. It could improve their life, but definitely won't kill them. So is it wrong for an orthodontist to correct this problem as well?

This is a tough subject.