Forensic Odontology

Odontology is the forensic science that is concerned with dental evidence. Dental records that are used to provide patients with optimal dental service could also be very beneficial to legal authorities during an identification process. If you want to understand the causes that existed in the past, look at the results as they are manifested in the present. And if you want to understand what results will be manifested in the future, look at the causes that exist in the present. The challenge to forensic odontologists is to embrace the positive accomplishments of the past, study and understand the errors that have occurred, and make the needed changes now, in the present, to optimize the future of forensic dentistry. Those changes include ensuring that scientific research is encouraged, supported, and performed to substantiate the procedures promoted and approved by forensic dentists and forensic odontology organizations. The roles of any forensic scientist are to collect, preserve and interpret trace evidence, then to relay the results to the judicial authority in a form of a report. Therefore, all forms of dental treatments should be recorded and kept properly.