Thank goodness for Dolphin!

I have been an enormous fan of Dolphin as a database for clinical photographs and have been using it at Chesterfield Royal Hospital for many years. We now have over 7,000 patients on our photographic database, most of whom are fully documented. I have also argued the importance of taking photographs of every patient, at every visit, to allow all trainees to derive maximum benefit from every treatment episode on each and every patient they treat or review. Having clinical photographs available, every visit, allows them to see whether the treatment they provided at the previous visit was the right thing to do … or, indeed, the wrong thing to do, as it has moved them further from ‘the finishing line’. On every single treatment episode, they can immediately assess the direct effect of their ministrations, six or eight weeks previously, and they have the ‘evidence’ in front of them which should serve to reinforce positive behaviours, and vice versa. It allows them to identify any errors or inaccuracies immediately, such as in their bracket placement, or tying of archwires, or placement of other accessories or application of forces that we all use, on a daily basis, in orthodontic practice.