Bioprogressive Ricketts Society
The idea of bringing together colleagues who had followed courses on the “Bioprogressive method of Ricketts” is attributed to Guy Perrier d’Arc. Following a meeting held on 19 November 1972 during the “small session” of the S.F.O.D.F., at the Faculty of Montrouge, a Provisional Bureau was set up.
The founders were right not to have made a mistake, since we can see today that very good results were achieved.
The bylaws, drafted with the assistance of Jacques Barbary, were published in the Official Journal on 11 May 1973; the “Ricketts Society” was born.
Official bulletin of 11 May 1973: creation of the Bioprogressive Ricketts Society
That same month of May, the first BULLETIN, initially a simple liaison body between the different regions, was published thanks to the kindness of Martin P. Hamilton, Director of Rocky Mountain Products C° France.
This “bulletin,” a few sheets at first, grew over the years and gained in importance, becoming “Bioprogressive Orthodontics”.
It is a genuine “Orthodontic Philosophy,” as per the title of the manual provided, that is taught to the first participants. It involves proposing a method for managing diagnostic and therapeutic reasoning: mechanics with the integration of functions and growth, visualization of treatment goals, without avoiding organizing chairside practice.
A “global method” of learning orthodontics that must answer the 3 famous questions:
What ?
Why ?
How ?
Orthodontic France in those sixties sees the recognition of Tweed’s concepts, imported by R. X. O’Meyer, which ushers in the era of modern orthodontics, despite questionable diagnostic values and mechanical means.
Edgewise replaces removable appliances, but dissent begins to emerge with the appearance of the concept of “light forces” and the birth of the Begg technique. Ricketts’ way of thinking is a bomb in this mechanistic landscape. Even today, it remains revolutionary.
Let us recall what President J. Philippe reported in the first editorial of our “Bulletin.” He wrote:
Presentation of the Society
The Ricketts Society is founded.
It was born from the meeting of about fifty orthodontists who, having understood what the best current orthodontic method is, want to deepen it, follow its evolution, and disseminate it.
If each of these practitioners enjoys the pride and pleasure of working with the most recent technique, and if their patients can benefit from its advantages, it is thanks to the dynamism and enthusiasm of a man, Carl F. Gugino.
In 1966, a young American practitioner—whose practice is nevertheless expanding rapidly—agreed to spend several weeks in France.
He is unknown there; he has no academic titles; his statements are met with suspicion, and he is barely reimbursed for his expenses. But he convinces. And he returns, driven by an irresistible desire to share his master’s faith in the method of Dr Ricketts, and by his passion for orthodontics. Behind the practitioner’s firm grip is the zeal of the evangelist. We owe him immense gratitude.
At the next International Congress of the A.D.F., Carl Gugino will be honored—this is the least French practitioners owed him.
One could apply to the orthodontist this quote by Goethe: “Knowing well and doing well one thing proves a higher development than doing a hundred things halfway.”
The Ricketts Society was created to help us know well and do well—and it brings together those whom C. Gugino trained, directly or indirectly.
Courses are still too short, and many of us feel the need to reinforce our knowledge; the desire to compare our diagnoses or treatment plans within a small group where each person actively takes part in the discussion. This type of exchange of viewpoints is no longer possible with the S.F.O.D.F. due to its size, and that is why we adopted the format of regional groups.
Quant aux questions d’intérêt commun (relations avec la « Foundation for Orthodontic Research etc…) il fallait choisir entre les réunions nationales fréquentes ou l’information à domicile. Nous avons opté pour le bulletin, lien amical, commode et, espérons-le, efficace.
The Society is launched. Let’s wish it good fortune—but let’s remember that it will only move forward with the momentum of each of us.
J. Philippe.
Since then, passion has not waned.
At first, courses are organized four times a year, always led by Carl Gugino accompanied by Michel Delamaire, who interprets both the language and the thought of this practitioner.
The Baule 1998: left to right: Daniel Rollet, Claude Chabre, Alain Béry, Michel Delamaire, Carl F. Gugino, Julien Philippe, Guy Perrier d’Arc.
The leaders of the “Regions” meet three times a year, for one or more days, with their members for continuing education training cycles in which all topics related to the ODF and other disciplines of Dental Art are addressed by specialists and academics.
Our Society’s “National Meetings” are held over two or more days, every two years, in each of the Regions that make it up, or sometimes in the overseas territories—Guadeloupe, Martinique—or, abroad, the island of Mauritius, for example in 1988.
Since then, other countries have received our Society. It is by looking at the past that we can measure the path we have traveled. After the various regions structured themselves in their own way, they pursued the same goals: to make the bioprogressive method known and promote it.
We can affirm that they have succeeded in doing so. Indeed, unlike the disgruntled minds who would like to present it as an easy and incomplete technique, for those who practice it as it was taught to them, it has the same basic requirements as the others and in fact demands much more.
Because Dr. Ricketts and Dr. Gugino have always insisted—so that results endure—on the quality of the finishing of treatments, naturally emphasizing the best interdigitation of the tooth cusps in the lateral segments, but also on the re-education of the different functions, to align with the logic and consistency of the “bioprogressive concept.”
Let us not forget that this method is one of the few fixed techniques that can be applied in the mixed dentition, which does not seem to us to be negligible.
And, most importantly, no doubt, is the ability of the bioprogressive concept to incorporate the therapeutic advances that appear and thus to keep pace with the evolution of orthodontics, as it is free from those rigidities that create ankyloses.
Finally, if we were fifty practitioners at the time of its baptism, we find ourselves at nearly seven hundred today.
What better endorsement for the Presidents J. Philippe, G. Perrier d’Arc, M. Bonnerot, M. Delamaire, A. Béry, Cl. Chabre, D. Rollet, F. Bazin and E. Lejoyeux, who inspired the ideas; the members of the Board of Directors who put them into practice; and without forgetting “the active members,” as well as our friends who have since passed away—everyone contributed over the years to making the Bioprogressive Ricketts Society the second orthodontic society in France.
L. Chavand and B. Terk,
former editors of the “Bulletin”
