Advice on Applying to Cleft/Craniofacial Fellowship

[togo123]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Hello, looking for advice in applying to cleft/craniofacial fellowship. Couple of questions here!

I come from a 4-year program where there is no available research experience. I am looking for ideas on how to beef up my research experience during the process of applying this year for fellowship in 2026-2027. I feel that I am coming at a disadvantage here.

Also, does anyone know stats on applicants matching? I think I read 50% match on another post? Would you recommend applying for all the other random orthognathic/general OMS spots? CF is where I want to be, but I'd rather match somewhere than nowhere at all.

Any other random advice? Feel free to message me, thanks!

 

[deleted1196239]

most cleft / craniofacial teams in US are run by Plastic surgeons. I am sure that the applicant pool is extremely small. I don't think there are that many applicants for this field.

without MD, it will be even more difficult.

 

[Masterus]

I’m not trying to discourage you but sadly, being a 4 year does put you at a disadvantage. Every single fellowship director is a 6 year person and that’s what they’re looking for and having a MD is still already hard. You’ll just have to network really hard. If you want to do cranio, you should apply to every single program and if you’re wanting fellowship you could check out the non cranio ones but for sure apply to all the cranio ones. Nonetheless, there are 4 years that do match. The landscape changes every year so the match rate is hard to say and not everyone applies to every single program.

Most research is just ideas bounced off of already published ideas. Just do some literature review and pick a topic where you could just find data publicly. I would attend the AACMFS meeting in the spring. Having research does help but doesn’t break your application if you don’t have it. It just depends what applicants are applying each cycle.

 

[deleted1196239]

Just do plastics. There are some OMS who switched over to Plastics for this reason. I think those surgeons are Dr Jason Yu in Colorado, Dr Urata at USC and Dr St Hilaire at LSU. I am sure there are many more across the states

 

[Masterus]

Telling someone to plastics do isn’t really a path people follow anymore. Before the plastics requirement changes, those guys you mentioned did it when you could do plastics 2 years after omfs and be a plastic surgeon. The days of dual plastics omfs is coming to an end. You will see less and less. Back in the day you could finish plastics after omfs in 2 years, now it is 5 years due to requirement changes. It is a tough road doing plastics and then craniofacial. It is an extra 2 years gen surg, 3 years plastics, 1 year cranio after a 6 year OMFS program. You could learn cranio after 1 year of an omfs fellowship.

 

[deleted1196239]

Telling someone to plastics do isn’t really a path people follow anymore. Before the plastics requirement changes, those guys you mentioned did it when you could do plastics 2 years after omfs and be a plastic surgeon. The days of dual plastics omfs is coming to an end. You will see less and less. Back in the day you could finish plastics after omfs in 2 years, now it is 5 years due to requirement changes. It is a tough road doing plastics and then craniofacial. It is an extra 2 years gen surg, 3 years plastics, 1 year cranio after a 6 year OMFS program. You could learn cranio after 1 year of an omfs fellowship.

you can do 1 year fellowship. You can do double fellowship. You can even go to Britain or Australia. Being able to run a craniofacial team and winning a political fight in hospital are different from just completing a fellowship.

this is my question to you. out of all those new grad cleft & craniofacial OMS surgeons, can you name at least 5 surgeons who does more than 100 cases+ a year? specifically cleft & craniofacial. I would like to know more as well.

 

[yappy]

you can do 1 year fellowship. You can do double fellowship. You can even go to Britain or Australia. Being able to run a craniofacial team and winning a political fight in hospital are different from just completing a fellowship.

this is my question to you. out of all those new grad cleft & craniofacial OMS surgeons, can you name at least 5 surgeons who does more than 100 cases+ a year? specifically cleft & craniofacial. I would like to know more as well.

It’s rare to see blunt honesty on these topics.

 

[Masterus]

Probably none of them. And how many cleft and craniofacial plastic surgeons are doing 100+ a year? Probably none of them. The job market is extremely difficulty but you gotta grind and find practices.

 

[parkinglottoilet]

Probably none of them. And how many cleft and craniofacial plastic surgeons are doing 100+ a year? Probably none of them. The job market is extremely difficulty but you gotta grind and find practices.

Yea the person who posted about doing 100+ craniofacial cases does not have a realistic idea of what a cleft center looks like in most places in America. I would venture most cleft centers are not hitting the 100 surgical cases per year