Sir, I write to draw the attention of your readers to a new campaign launched to lobby for a change of names for orthodontists to orthodentists to help straighten out a long-standing disparity.

For many years there has been evident confusion in the public's mind about the differentiation between 'dont' and 'dent'.1 For many the dont is viewed as denoting a lesser qualification than the dent, leading to a significant loss of respect to my esteemed colleagues in the field of orthodontics, or orthodentics as we would like to hear it styled in the future (Fig. 1).

Figure 1
figure 1

Proposed signage under new campaign

The precedent for this is very clear since a GDP is not described as a general dontist practitioner and the prospective next NHS agreement is not referred to as the new Dontal Contract.

We are in discussions with other specialist societies who feel similarly about this historically iniquitous situation and I suspect that in due course you will be receiving similar missives from prospective periodentists, prosthodentists and forensic odentologists.

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