Cleft Lip and Palate Orthodontics Fellowship to be Launched at Mashhad Soon

Director of Orthodontics Department at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences Arezoo Jahan, PhD, said that Health Ministry agreed on launching the field of Cleft Lip and Palate Orthodontics and, also, on admitting two students from the next autumn, WEBDA reported. 

“The field was approved by the ministry due to attempts of the university’s Vice Chancellor for Education, its Dean as well as Dean of School of Dentistry,” she noted, adding that the goal is to train skilled workers and to expand services to patients with cleft lip and cleft palate.”

Saying that cleft lip and palate is assumed as one of the common congenital malformations, she stated, “Due to its complex nature, patients need a variety of treatments from infancy to adulthood including Orthodontics as well as surgery.”

The professor at Mashhad’s Orthodontics Department maintained, “Given that there is no sufficient time to completely teach the therapeutic methods for certain patients, the graduates are afraid of treating them.”

Absence of a unique unit to admit and to treat patients and, also, the lack of adequate training of professionals at universities makes patients confused. Therefore, sometimes treatment is not carried out at a proper time, making the problem more complex, according to Dr. Jahan.

Director of Orthodontics Department at Mashhad’s School of Dentistry asserted that as Mashhad University of Medical Sciences is the largest medical center in East and North-East of the country and as so many patients from diverse cities as well as from neighboring countries annually go to its clinics and medical centers to be treated, launching Cleft Lip and Palate Orthodontics Fellowship at School of Dentistry is vital.

“The school, dating back to 30 years ago, is training orthodontics professionals,” she noted.

Stressing that this is the first Lip Cleft and Palate Orthodontics Fellowship in Iran, DR. Jahan claimed that launching the field would play a key role in training specialists and in expanding services to patients.