Ask an OMS resident anything
Started by armorshell
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Oh, this doesn't sound too bad. Pretty standard.
Btw, do you guys have night float at all?
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Armorshell, I have a couple of questions...
1. As a resident, when you are expected to take call q3-q4, does that mean you have to stay in the hospital all night each time you are on call? Do you stay through your shift on the next day (until 6 or 8 PM the following day)?
2. I forget which one it is, but I found a website of a residency program that accepts students who have just finished their first year for externships. Would this be beneficial? I feel like I would just be in the way more than anything, but I'm sure the networking is good as long as I'm not a tool
Thanks for your help!
1. As a resident, when you are expected to take call q3-q4, does that mean you have to stay in the hospital all night each time you are on call? Do you stay through your shift on the next day (until 6 or 8 PM the following day)?
2. I forget which one it is, but I found a website of a residency program that accepts students who have just finished their first year for externships. Would this be beneficial? I feel like I would just be in the way more than anything, but I'm sure the networking is good as long as I'm not a tool
Thanks for your help!
It's frowned upon but possible. Many people apply to a specialty and a GPR simultaneously. I also knew someone who applied to ortho and OMS simultaneously (matched to ortho).
So there are two types of bisphosphonates, oral and IV, taken for very different reasons. Oral bisphosphonates are more commonly prescribed, and utilized for prevention of osteoporosis in the elderly. IV bisphosphonates are utilized in cancer treatment. IV bisphosphonates are associated with a high rate of BRONJ, as are oral bisphosphonates at a much lower rate.
I'd be very comfortable doing dental implants without major grafting in your average grandma taking oral bisphosphonates. The chances of developing osteonecrosis after getting an implant placed on oral bisphosphonates are ridiculously low. The biggest case series showed a rate of 7/28,000.
Yes, especially the reading comprehension section.
It was only slightly more expensive than my next cheapest option (I won a scholarship to UoP) and because it had the 3 year program. I enjoyed my time at Pacific quite a bit and got an excellent education.
Night floats are generally employed by large medical services that are under work hour restrictions because their interns can only work 16 hour shifts. These services tend to be very busy with multiple teams, and the night floats cover in-house calls on other teams patients when they don't have an admitting night.
Because we're a small service (onl~30 residents total) and we don't have work hour restrictions, there's no need for a night float. I've not heard of any OMS program that utilizes them either.
You mentioned a while back that residents at many programs had to take the NBME to create a baseline score to compare new applicants against. Do you know how these residents performed on the NBME? How did you do?
I haven't seen any data. I did take it, I don't remember my score but it would have been a low pass on the USMLE (Without studying, they specifically told us not to study).
Being 100% serious, the strongest published correlation between DAT and NBDE overall score is the RC section on the DAT.
I've heard the same thing about the MCAT and the USMLE, actually.
Hi Armorshell, Thanks for doing this!
I had a few questions regarding oms:
1. Generally, in what percent of the class (top 5, 10, etc) do you have to be to have a good chance of getting into an OMS residency (all other factors equal)
2. How many oms programs did you apply to/get into and why did you select the program you are currently enrolled in?
Thanks!
I had a few questions regarding oms:
1. Generally, in what percent of the class (top 5, 10, etc) do you have to be to have a good chance of getting into an OMS residency (all other factors equal)
2. How many oms programs did you apply to/get into and why did you select the program you are currently enrolled in?
Thanks!
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1. I think people on SDN overestimate class rank for it's importance in OMS. Boards (or NBME) are much more important. I think anywhere in the top 20% is a good, competitive rank with higher being better obviously.
2. I applied to way too many programs for the competitiveness of my application. Applied to 30, got 27 interviews and went on ~11. It's not like dental school applications where you interview, receive acceptances then choose, there's a matching process. I picked the program I did because it's a very large, stable and well rounded program with a huge volume and excellent reputation. Also it has a cheap medical school (Which incidentally is very highly ranked, not that I care but it's a nice aside).
yea also the ones with P/F and honors
Like wise... GP for us.
Like I said, I don't really think rank is as important as people assume. P/F (and H/P/F) schools don't generally award rankings, so it probably doesn't matter either.
It's just a correlation, and the NBDE is P/F now so it's irrelevant.
Thanks for your reply!
Do you know if 4 year programs took part in taking the NBME? I would imagine that their scores might be lower, not because they are incompetent, but because they never had to take the STEP 1.
I know the 4 year vs 6 year question always comes up, but I wanted to get your view on the current situation. If one were aiming strictly to work in private practice, does getting an MD matter? Would it affect referrals at all? Or is this more like getting a DDS/DMD from dental school, where no one cares where you went (no one cares whether you have an MD or not)?
What do you believe is the future landscape for OMFS? Do you see scope expansion in academics? What do you see as some procedures OMFS will delve into in private practice once implants begin to be placed more and more by trained GPs?
Do you know if 4 year programs took part in taking the NBME? I would imagine that their scores might be lower, not because they are incompetent, but because they never had to take the STEP 1.
I know the 4 year vs 6 year question always comes up, but I wanted to get your view on the current situation. If one were aiming strictly to work in private practice, does getting an MD matter? Would it affect referrals at all? Or is this more like getting a DDS/DMD from dental school, where no one cares where you went (no one cares whether you have an MD or not)?
What do you believe is the future landscape for OMFS? Do you see scope expansion in academics? What do you see as some procedures OMFS will delve into in private practice once implants begin to be placed more and more by trained GPs?
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Where does research rank in the criteria programs use to judge applicants? Also, would research with an MS be looked upon significantly more favorably than just research alone? Obviously the additional degree couldn't hurt, but would it be worth the time cost of taking additional classes.
At one of my interviews, they said they only offer the 6-year OMFS program because they want their grads to have full OR privileges. Apparently you can get bumped, if you are doing a hospital case, and you don't have the MD, or something.
I'm not sure how true this actually is... I work with three OMFS that take hospital call. two of the three don't have an MD, and they have never had an issue at the hospital. Seems they are treated equally to an ENT. This could not be the norm, but I don't see why it would be any different elsewhere. Just my $0.02 👍
Do you play any video games?
I don't see where they are distinguishing between an OMFS with an MD vs without. Also, I think this agrees with what I was saying about the OMFS being treated equally to an ENT (with an MD). Am I reading your post correctly?
Depending on the way the program schedules medical school, most of the 6 year programs hadn't taken Step 1 before the NBME either. I didn't.
I think there are probably a minority of dentists who care (very small minority) that probably wouldn't significantly affect referrals. Even if it did, it would probably be more for things like biopsies, oral path, etc... not desirable referrals like implants or wisdom teeth. I was speaking with my old GP yesterday and he said he had a similar sentiment. He sends wisdom teeth and implants to the "4 year guy down the street" but saves the biopsies, orthognathics, etc... for the "medical guys."
The value of the MD is more ephemeral if you're sure you're going into private practice. At this point it's a necessity for a serious academic OMS career. OMS is moving inexorably towards being ALL dual-degree IMO, and I think this may happen in my lifetime. Anesthesia privileges are constantly under assault, and there are always scope battles coming in from different medical practitioners (PRS, ENT, Derm). I feel having the MD takes some of the pressure off of these. Additionally, I chose a program with a very cheap MD that I was allowed to moonlight at (Unfortunately we lost that privilege, but you can't plan for that) so the financial impact should have been minimal.
All in all, I don't think you need the MD to be a successful private practice OMS in any way, shape or form, but it might make some things slightly easier for you. In general it's a poor financial decision, made much poorer if you choose a program without moonlighting or an expensive medical school.
OMS will continue to be dominated by private practice based dentoalveolar surgery with anesthesia unless that somehow dries up. The academic minority will continue to further the scope of the specialty into MORS, craniofacial surgery and facial cosmetics. MORS (Maxillofacial oncologic and reconstructive surgery) is the newest field of battle.
As far as implants being placed by GP's, that ship has already sailed my friend. It doesn't mean much for OMS besides that portion of your practice now looks like what endodontists see today: difficult or medically complicated cases, retreatments and failures.
I've never heard of anything like this, and to be honest it doesn't make much sense. Were you interviewing for dental school or residency? How reliable was the source?
This doesn't really answer the question being asked, but it does show that oral surgeons as a percentage of our # of providers, provide the most facial trauma coverage in the US.
Absolutely not. I have little to no interest in facial cosmetic surgery and even less interest in full-body cosmetics. I do like the early seasons of Nip/Tuck, but that doesn't mean I want to have anything to do with cosmetics. I liked Firefly too, but does that make you think I want to be a space cowboy?
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Figured you may have missed my question when the thread flipped over to page 2, so I'm reposting:
"Armorshell, are you aware of any programs where single-degree oral surgeons can go back for the two years of medical school to obtain their MD?"
Thx!
"Armorshell, are you aware of any programs where single-degree oral surgeons can go back for the two years of medical school to obtain their MD?"
Thx!
I don't think it would help getting an MD after, as you would not be able to get a medical license. I believe you need at least a year of residency after getting your MD to get your license. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
Dental school, and she was the admissions secretary/tour guide, so probably not the most knowledgeable about curriculum. Perhaps I misunderstood her, but that's how she justified her program not offering a 4-year OMFS, just the 6-year.
But if doing the 4-year is pretty much the same as the 6-year (excluding the extra MD), then maybe I'll just go for the 4-year.
I'm pretty decent at Guitar Hero but no, not really. I'm more of a board/card game kind of guy.
Unfortunately I'm not. problem with these type of programs is that even if you get the MD in two years, you still need to do an additional year of medical residency to license it, so you're really looking at a 3 year track. I don't really think very many people take advantage of the programs that do exist though.
Research is probably more important at some institutions than others when determining admissions, but overall I'd say it's not particularly important. My spitballing would put it at less than 10% of the total application, maybe even less.
Lots of people I applied with never did ANY research and still managed to interview and match at top programs without a problem.
If you're interested I'd say go for it. If you're doing it just to increase your chance at OMS admissions, I wouldn't waste the time.
I see this happen all the time, where people misunderstand something they were told and expand it without actually knowing the reason behind what the difference between 4 and 6 year programs are. But yes, not a really reliable source.
I don't think anyone would fault you for thinking about it that way. You'll get a better idea of exactly what you want to do the more externships you do. Make sure you get a chance to see a 4 year and a 6 year program
hey armor, just reposting a question from page 1: when would be ideal to do our first externship? end of 2nd year? earlier? what can we do during 1st and 2nd year to better our CVs?
Guess I missed a bunch of page 1 stuff. My opinion is do them as early and as often as you can. I don't think there's anything that gets you the same experience and application boost as doing an externship at a program you're interested in.
Other stuff to do to boost your application is getting awesome grades and boards scores, and then any EC's you're interested in. Research, clubs, mission trips, it all helps a little, just find something you like.
I was wondering what was the biggest contributing factor for your turnaround from a low undergrad GPA to achieving top status in your class 🙂
Effort.
Based on at least what I've seen, externships are somewhat competitive (LORs required, statement of intent, transcript, etc. and services usually only accept one extern at a time)...
So say you're trying to get an externship in over a specific break, would you...
1) apply to more than one externship in order to increase your odds of getting at least one (but then potentially have to turn one or more down, which seems to me would look VERY bad), or
2) apply to just one externship and potentially risk wasting a valuable break if you don't happen to get it?
So say you're trying to get an externship in over a specific break, would you...
1) apply to more than one externship in order to increase your odds of getting at least one (but then potentially have to turn one or more down, which seems to me would look VERY bad), or
2) apply to just one externship and potentially risk wasting a valuable break if you don't happen to get it?
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Not as a primary/first assist. That's generally reserved for upper level or chief residents, which at my program is the 5th and 6th years. I was studying for my OB/GYN shelf, went fine.
Not too important but it wouldn't hurt. I'd weight extracurriculars at about 10% of the application.
So you're saying they do exist, although it ends up taking an extra year when compared to the standard route to an MD?
Thanks armor, that's good to hear. Kinda related: should you plan your first 1-2 externships as "throw-aways" i.e. select programs that you're not really interested in so that you don't leave a bad impression while you're still green? Saving the best for last when you're most prepared and closet to applications makes sense...to me at least.
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