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On 17 November, the annual ‘So you want to be an orthodontist?' conference was hosted in London at the British Orthodontic Society's (BOS') headquarters.

This day provided an insight into becoming an orthodontist, exploring different stages of an orthodontist's career from the recruitment process to speciality training and then the life of a specialist orthodontist both in practice and in further training.

The day was hosted by the BOS Training Grades Group who had put a lot of effort into making the day as useful as possible. It was very interesting to hear from many registrars at different stages in their training, as well as qualified orthodontists, which allowed us to gain an insight into training and life beyond training.

The day started with an ST1, Ms Amin, exploring the rigours of the application process and how to maximise chances of getting it right. Applying to orthodontics is conducted through national recruitment and via Oriel. There are multiple stages including the self-assessment and then the interview which Ms Amin explored, giving us her personal tips. It was useful to hear this from someone who had recently gone through the process successfully.

This was then followed by a thought-provoking talk given by Mr Jamie Gwilliam who mainly focused on preparing for the interview from a consultant orthodontist's perspective. Mr Gwilliam explored the importance of conveying passion and validity throughout the interview and how to portray this in the best way in the 15-minute allocated slots at each station.

Following this, Ms Tajmehr, an ST3 at Norwich and Guy's Hospital, gave us an insight into her training as an orthodontic registrar thus far. It was very useful gaining an insight into where registrars are placed between district general hospitals and dental teaching hospitals which came as a surprise to many of us. The benefits of being split across different sites were highlighted which we all were interested in exploring.

Ms Davenport-Jones, a consultant orthodontist, gave us an overview of the current curriculum that exists in the UK and how this is in the process of changing. It will be interesting to see these changes pan out in the next year as they will directly affect our future training. It was useful to explore the various potential changes that may happen and the positive impact they may have for future orthodontic registrars.

The next talk of the day presented a registrar - Ms Liu, who was undertaking an ACF post in orthodontics. We were introduced to an alternate route to orthodontics and learnt about the benefits of undertaking such a post as many of us were not aware of this avenue before. Exploring a world of research, academia and orthodontics intercalated was certainly an interest to many of the budding candidates.

In continuation, we then were given an insight into life in specialist practice as well as post CCST which are various avenues that can be undertaken after the completion of three years in orthodontic speciality training. Ms Lari and Ms Kane explored the reasoning for their choices and what a normal timetabled week looks like for them in two different environments as orthodontists.

The day concluded with roundtable discussions where we were given the opportunity to talk to the current registrars in small group discussions. This allowed us to ask any questions we had about the application process and general training queries, as well as being able to see the trainees' self-assessment forms. These discussions gave us a true indication of what is expected of us when applying and allowed us to set some targets on how to go about doing so.

Overall, this day was brilliantly organised and left us feeling equipped to work towards the expectations of orthodontic speciality applications. I would highly recommend this day to any of my colleagues interested in pursuing a career in orthodontics.

Thank you to the BOS Training Grades Group for organising such a useful day for us all.