Dr Gautam Munjal, a practising orthodontist of Chandigarh, has been honoured with national award for his path-breaking clinical work in restoring and improving the people’s smile.

At the recently held 42nd Indian Orthodontic Conference at Nagpur, Dr Munjal’s clinical paper received the Best Clinical Paper Award.

Dr. Munjal who started his clinical practice in 1993 having done his post graduation in orthodontics from PGI, and being one of the first 12 in the country to earn the Diplomate Indian Board of Orthodontics in 1999has a number of clinical and research papers to his credit.

His award-winning clinical paper explored the vital aspect of taking orthodontic treatment to the next level of facial esthetics, the smile framework and dental appearance.

The orthodontists normally endeavour to correct the dental alignments and achieve occlusion (macro aesthetics) whereas there is a growing need to understand the overall esthetic to improve the smile and appearance, said Dr. Munjal.

The biggest challenge for orthodontist, he added, is to achieve optimum results through a 360 degree approach by understanding and evaluating factors like age, existing dental, gingival, skeletal and facial soft tissue components, before initiating the orthodontic treatment.

Earlier the finer smile aspect used to be handled by using dentures or restorations, the latter procedure being invastive and used to affect the vitality of teeth, and temporary which required repeated procedures, Dr Munjal informed.

Our clinical results have proven that smile arc can be restored orthodontically even at re-treatment stage, which gives more biological and stable results, Dr. Munjal said.

Dr. Munjal who also specialises in cleft lip and palate orthodontics, interceptive orthodontics, biomehanics and inter-disciplinary approach, has earlier been conferred with fellowships of Pierre Fauchard Academy (1998), Academy Dentistry International (1999), World Federation of Orthodontics (2001), and International College of Dentists (2002).

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Dr. Gautam Munjal, a practising Orthodontist at Chandigarh, is a dental graduate from the Government Medical College, Patiala (1987), and a post-graduate in Orthontics from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research, Chandigarh (1992). He was one of the first batch of 12 Orthodontists in 1999 to earn the title of Diplomate Indian Board of Orthodontics, and is one of the select 52 orthodontists in India holding this distinction. The Diplomate recognition is awarded for clinical excellence after a strict examination. Dr. Munjal has also been conferred with various fellowships, namely of Pierre Fauchard Academy (1998), Academy Dentistry International (1999), World Federation of Orthodontics (2001), and International College of Dentists (2002). He has been awarded Dr. Ashima Vallathan’s Award & 3M Unitek Travel Fellowship as the first prize for his clinical presentation at the 42nd Indian Orthodontics Conference, held at Nagpur on 4-6 January 2008.