If you need dental treatment you may wonder what the difference is between a dentist and an orthodontist.  While you may know that it’s usually an orthodontist that fits braces, the difference is more far-reaching than that. An orthodontist works in the area of straightening teeth and aligning the jaw, but he has had three more years of training than a dentist.

While both have undergone the same 5 year full time university course in dentistry, the orthodontist has undergone a further three years of full time training to achieve the knowledge and expertise that makes him or her an orthodontist.  Generally speaking, anyone working as an orthodontist does not fix decays, extract teeth or do general dental work such as teeth whitening, even though they do know how, having had to work as a dentist for two years before taking on the further training needed for orthodontics.

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