Decision Making in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Arriving at the appropriate diagnosis or treatment of any condition must involve a logical thought process. An algorithm is a graphic representation of how this process should proceed. Learning to use the algorithms presented in this text not only leads to proper patient management but also helps to develop a thought process that can be applied to other diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. Even when a clinician is throughly familiar with the management of a particular problem and able to treat it successfully, there is a difference between knowing what to do and logically descrubing the diagnostic and therapeutic process. This was the challenge that we presented to the clinicians who were asked to contribute algorithms.