The 20 Principles of the Alexander Discipline, Volume 2. R.G. "Wick" Alexander

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      Dedication

      It is mind-boggling to think about how treatment mechanics have changed over the length of my career. The change in efficiency between the start of my career and today is incredible.

      I clearly remember Dr Tweed’s words of advice, given to us University of Texas orthodontic graduate students in 1963: “If you start and finish one case a week, you will have a successful practice.” In other words, he was telling us that we could not control the treatment and produce quality results with a larger practice. He was recommending that each practitioner have around 100 active patients.

      At this time, many orthodontists were still “pinching” bands. Preformed bands were just arriving into the market, preformed archwires were nonexistent, and everything was stainless steel. But times were changing!

      Two West Texas orthodontists who had a tremendous influence upon my and others’ orthodontic careers were Jim Reynolds and Jay Barnett. They were the first to talk about efficiency and delegation in orthodontics. Their contribution to our profession should be better recognized; they considerably changed the way orthodontic treatment is delivered.

      When I opened my private practice in 1964, we were controlling torque, angulation, and off-sets by bends into the stainless steel rectangular archwires. During the next decade, Larry Andrews showed how these archwire bends could be transferred to the bracket. This was a huge change, the beginning of straight-wire mechanics.

      With the evolution of bonding, bracket design, and new archwire alloys, a single practitioner can now have a quality practice by starting and finishing one patient a day!

      To future generations:

      When I graduated from orthodontics school, I thought that I had been given a lifetime of discovery on a silver platter. My predecessors spent their lives searching, discovering, and then sharing. What a difference they made in my life and in the lives of so many others. Little did I realize how much additional change would take place in my generation. Although battles continue regarding extractions, stability, and particular techniques in orthodontics, and although much focus has been on quantity rather than quality of treatment, you don’t have to make a choice between quality results and financial success. A good orthodontist can achieve financial success while producing high-quality results in his or her patients.