I am considering a cleft fellowship post OMFS residency. Just like we do residency overviews, wondering if there are any people out here who have completed/completing cleft fellowships and would be willing to share their experiences.
Cleft/Craniofacial surgery fellowships
- Thread starter ozzyomfs
- Start date
I have no relationship to any of these programs. From talking to applicants and fellows, seems like craniofacial fellowships are in a transition period. Some programs stand out more than others. At the end though, as long as you learn it, you can go out there and practice it. It isn't always about absolute numbers.
Arnold Palmer - Traditionally Arnold Palmer was one of the busiest, but they’ve lost an OR day with Ramon gone and it is a heavy suctioning as first assist fellowship. (They will tell you this to your face at the interview) This is true for the first 6 months, then for the last 6 months they let you start doing parts of the procedure. 365 primary call is tough to swallow. The volume is still great though. Arnol Palmer is one of the busiest birthing centers in the country which leads to high volume cleft and craniofacial referrals. They have boxed out plastics and have control of the NICU. They have a high volume of complex cranio orthognathics which is the most robust part of the fellowship. Some of the nicest attendings who really do want to teach you. For years, this was the golden fellowship because it taught cranial vaults but now there are other fellowships doing vaults with more cutting and no primary call. (This is one where there are a lot of graduates from this fellowship because it was the first combined experience one but the last 8 years the landscape changed substantially. The primary call is really the downfall to this fellowship since you can’t leave Orlando for a year and will have to do full scope pediatric primary call. (No residents) Jacksonville is the only other one that has primary call as well. the trauma call can be busy but you do see cool craniofacial trauma cases like PEEK implants. You do see some zebras at this center since it is the main center for cleft and cranio in Orlando. This was one of the first fellowships for OMFS to offer a combined cleft and cranio experience. (Almost no fellowships except this fellowship were doing cranial vaults until the mid 2010s) Then, the modern age fellowships started. This along with Oklahoma have the best network of alumni practicing cleft/craniofacial.
BCH - Boston Children’s is a pediatric maxillofacial fellowship. Attendings are hands on. The attendings cut the cases and you even retract in hips and cleft ortho per what the residents say. You can go to plastics cases but you only suction and watch. This is all hush hush but don’t expect to cut much. You have to share pediatric cases with MGH chiefs and share with a plastics craniofacial fellow. The fellow will retract for the chief sometimes too on routine ortho for parts of the case. You don’t really have a “fellowship mentor” as you’re with 7 different attendings. It’s a disadvantage as you can’t just call up your guy to give you advice. Also plastics is very much about keeping omfs in their lane and not doing true cleft/cranio. Very chill schedule, no clinic and no call. You’ll get a good log on paper but probably come out with some skills. Good fellowship for research given how productive the BCH group is. They do a solid amount of orthognathics where you will get better at. I would treat this more as an orthognathics fellowship. Also they don’t take american grads as much for some reason even though there are some very impressive US applicants and have been taking foreign grads.
Oklahoma - One of the most competitive ones because there is no scutwork with residents, operative experience is busy with the top cleft experience (lots of primary lips and palates and cleft rhinos), highest cleft orthognathics and alveolar bone graft numbers. The craniofacial experience is busier than others as well esp because Tiwana has now taken over cranial vaults in both OKC and Tulsa so basically the entire state. This is based in a university so there is more “legitimacy to the fellowship”. Kevin Smith retired which initially hurt cleft numbers but numbers are going up fast being based in an actual university. This fellowship is on 2 cleft and craniofacial teams with two well known fellowship trained attendings with resident support and this is one of the best paying fellowships as well. (6 figure potential) Ritto is a motivated attending and is actively boosting cleft Tiwana (one of the first posnick fellows like the greats Ramon Ruiz and BJ Costello and any Parkland/Oklahoma grad who trained under him speak very highly of him) has taken cranio in OKC on top already doing cranial vaults at the Tulsa site. OU plastics is now boxed out from craniofacial. There is a third attending Sullivan who works with the residents more and who is well known in the orthognathics world (over 280 double jaws a year) and also craniofacial trained who you have an opportunity to learn from as well when there isn’t anything going on. There is a fourth attending outside of the program that is an ENT trained cleft surgeon who you can also scrub cleft cases with and is very willing to teach. (I'm sure there is an opportunity to see a cleft ENT trained person do otoplasties which is rarely done in any of these fellowships including BCH who leaves it to ENT). A lot of applicants have ranked it 1 or 2 the last few cycles for good reason. One of the largest active networks of fellowship alumni to have. For some Oklahoma City may be a harder move. You will have to staff Tiwana's trauma cases with the residents and teach them. You do not take attending call except for when you're on attending call for infections so some may see this as a negative if they're wanting to get their hands dirty on trauma. The downside is you end up having to cover infections for Tiwana and Ritto as well as your own call. You will be teaching residents these cases.
Jacksonville/Nemours - The volume here has always been steady. You’ll get adequately trained in cleft and craniofacial. They were kissing a fellow because of the fallout with UF Jacksonville they had moved to a private clinic with the same patient population. 365 primary call is tough to swallow but he’s definitely found ways to help lighten the call and help you avoid seeing BS consults. He’s older but his clinic is now busier than ever with the move to Nemours which is fully a children’s clinic/hospital. Good craniofacial experience with very independent cutting. Cleft experience is with the plastic surgeon who is apparently willing to teach the fellow for now. There is some political battle happening but the cutting experience is very independent. Noone really sure how many more years this fellowship has. It hasn’t been as popular anymore due to all the conflict but it is still a solid fellowship. The downside is the primary call. Orthognathics experience isn’t crazy either. You also see cool cases and can participate in free flaps with an outside micro surgeon if the case is done on a pediatric pathology patient.
El Paso - This is a busy program. This is a safe city located next to Juarez Mexico. Attendings are a nice group of people based in a private practice. There is a ton of operating as well as even more scutwork, rounding, primary consults, orthognathic insurance authorizations and other work. You are the intern, resident, chief and fellow. Word on the street is the fellowship is busy but somewhat disorganized due to the lack of support. Numbers are good but loss of their famous neurosurgeon has led to half the volume of vaults now (they used to do no open vaults but now doing a handful more) and a lot of wasted time on endoscopic craniectomies which you will never do again. (Most vaults are endoscopic and no neurosurgeon will ever let you do an endoscopic over them unless you’re family with the guy) They did 0 open vaults before with the old guy but now the new guy they do a handful more. Open vault experience is lower than other places. Low cleft orthognathics which makes sense because there’s poor followup in their patient population and patients cannot afford orthodontics or are compliant. They’re starting a residency program which will cut down the scutwork but it will also count down the caseload the fellow does including orthognathics and trauma. They do 30 double jaws (most are not cleft) a year which will probably all go to residents. A lot of fellowship applicants don’t apply due to location but El Paso is a very livable city. A lot of focus on absolute number of procedures but if you look closely at the log half of the procedures are teeth and adult trauma. On the bright side fellows get to cut a large portion of the cleft and cranio cases. The cleft experience is really the strongpoint of the fellowship. It is some of the best primary cleft experience. They go to Juarez once a month to do more cases. Numbers are good but fellows tend to get burnt out from the scutwork. General perspective from outside providers seems to be you’re basically doing a year long mission trip. Overall a solid fellowship but you will get worked to the bones in the middle of nowhere. Yates learned cleft the Shreveport way (Ghali) which is likely different from the fellowships created by the posnick fellows and Royal Melbourne graduates. El Paso and Oklahoma post some of the best cranial vault numbers. (El Paso more endoscopic and Oklahoma more open)
Tampa craniofacial - Heard big changes to this. this private practice has had partners leaving. The new trauma/orthognathics fellowship will likely take away from the orthognathics experience of the craniofacial fellow which was the strength of her fellowship. Still probably posts the highest orthognathics numbers 100 double jaws a year. More of an orthognathics fellowship with some cleft cranio otherwise average to below average cleft/craniofacial numbers. You’ll get to touch cleft. Seems a lot of graduates from this don’t actually practice cleft and end up in private practice. Cranial vault volume isn’t crazy. People like it for the orthognathics and applicability to private practice. Busy year as you’ll be on call for all the patients. Ricalde is an OG posnick fellow so she will train you well.
Buffalo - Newest fellowship. Only other fellowship other than Oklahoma based fully in a University which is looked well upon. It has solid craniofacial numbers since everything is done completely open. Cleft numbers are ok. Not a lot of cleft ortho, or alveolar cleft. The primary cleft is half done with a plastics attending who you just suction for and watch. Good salary. New attending coming on that is supposed to cut in cases with the other attending. (Not sure where they’re going to find volume for 2 attendings with a plastics person there). Buffalo is cold and not the greatest place to live. Orthognathics experience is low. Salary is great. Minimal scutwork as you have residents but you will take Markiewicz’s call on top of your own attending call.
WVU - closed
Pittsburgh - closed
Shreveport - closed
Arnold Palmer - Traditionally Arnold Palmer was one of the busiest, but they’ve lost an OR day with Ramon gone and it is a heavy suctioning as first assist fellowship. (They will tell you this to your face at the interview) This is true for the first 6 months, then for the last 6 months they let you start doing parts of the procedure. 365 primary call is tough to swallow. The volume is still great though. Arnol Palmer is one of the busiest birthing centers in the country which leads to high volume cleft and craniofacial referrals. They have boxed out plastics and have control of the NICU. They have a high volume of complex cranio orthognathics which is the most robust part of the fellowship. Some of the nicest attendings who really do want to teach you. For years, this was the golden fellowship because it taught cranial vaults but now there are other fellowships doing vaults with more cutting and no primary call. (This is one where there are a lot of graduates from this fellowship because it was the first combined experience one but the last 8 years the landscape changed substantially. The primary call is really the downfall to this fellowship since you can’t leave Orlando for a year and will have to do full scope pediatric primary call. (No residents) Jacksonville is the only other one that has primary call as well. the trauma call can be busy but you do see cool craniofacial trauma cases like PEEK implants. You do see some zebras at this center since it is the main center for cleft and cranio in Orlando. This was one of the first fellowships for OMFS to offer a combined cleft and cranio experience. (Almost no fellowships except this fellowship were doing cranial vaults until the mid 2010s) Then, the modern age fellowships started. This along with Oklahoma have the best network of alumni practicing cleft/craniofacial.
BCH - Boston Children’s is a pediatric maxillofacial fellowship. Attendings are hands on. The attendings cut the cases and you even retract in hips and cleft ortho per what the residents say. You can go to plastics cases but you only suction and watch. This is all hush hush but don’t expect to cut much. You have to share pediatric cases with MGH chiefs and share with a plastics craniofacial fellow. The fellow will retract for the chief sometimes too on routine ortho for parts of the case. You don’t really have a “fellowship mentor” as you’re with 7 different attendings. It’s a disadvantage as you can’t just call up your guy to give you advice. Also plastics is very much about keeping omfs in their lane and not doing true cleft/cranio. Very chill schedule, no clinic and no call. You’ll get a good log on paper but probably come out with some skills. Good fellowship for research given how productive the BCH group is. They do a solid amount of orthognathics where you will get better at. I would treat this more as an orthognathics fellowship. Also they don’t take american grads as much for some reason even though there are some very impressive US applicants and have been taking foreign grads.
Oklahoma - One of the most competitive ones because there is no scutwork with residents, operative experience is busy with the top cleft experience (lots of primary lips and palates and cleft rhinos), highest cleft orthognathics and alveolar bone graft numbers. The craniofacial experience is busier than others as well esp because Tiwana has now taken over cranial vaults in both OKC and Tulsa so basically the entire state. This is based in a university so there is more “legitimacy to the fellowship”. Kevin Smith retired which initially hurt cleft numbers but numbers are going up fast being based in an actual university. This fellowship is on 2 cleft and craniofacial teams with two well known fellowship trained attendings with resident support and this is one of the best paying fellowships as well. (6 figure potential) Ritto is a motivated attending and is actively boosting cleft Tiwana (one of the first posnick fellows like the greats Ramon Ruiz and BJ Costello and any Parkland/Oklahoma grad who trained under him speak very highly of him) has taken cranio in OKC on top already doing cranial vaults at the Tulsa site. OU plastics is now boxed out from craniofacial. There is a third attending Sullivan who works with the residents more and who is well known in the orthognathics world (over 280 double jaws a year) and also craniofacial trained who you have an opportunity to learn from as well when there isn’t anything going on. There is a fourth attending outside of the program that is an ENT trained cleft surgeon who you can also scrub cleft cases with and is very willing to teach. (I'm sure there is an opportunity to see a cleft ENT trained person do otoplasties which is rarely done in any of these fellowships including BCH who leaves it to ENT). A lot of applicants have ranked it 1 or 2 the last few cycles for good reason. One of the largest active networks of fellowship alumni to have. For some Oklahoma City may be a harder move. You will have to staff Tiwana's trauma cases with the residents and teach them. You do not take attending call except for when you're on attending call for infections so some may see this as a negative if they're wanting to get their hands dirty on trauma. The downside is you end up having to cover infections for Tiwana and Ritto as well as your own call. You will be teaching residents these cases.
Jacksonville/Nemours - The volume here has always been steady. You’ll get adequately trained in cleft and craniofacial. They were kissing a fellow because of the fallout with UF Jacksonville they had moved to a private clinic with the same patient population. 365 primary call is tough to swallow but he’s definitely found ways to help lighten the call and help you avoid seeing BS consults. He’s older but his clinic is now busier than ever with the move to Nemours which is fully a children’s clinic/hospital. Good craniofacial experience with very independent cutting. Cleft experience is with the plastic surgeon who is apparently willing to teach the fellow for now. There is some political battle happening but the cutting experience is very independent. Noone really sure how many more years this fellowship has. It hasn’t been as popular anymore due to all the conflict but it is still a solid fellowship. The downside is the primary call. Orthognathics experience isn’t crazy either. You also see cool cases and can participate in free flaps with an outside micro surgeon if the case is done on a pediatric pathology patient.
El Paso - This is a busy program. This is a safe city located next to Juarez Mexico. Attendings are a nice group of people based in a private practice. There is a ton of operating as well as even more scutwork, rounding, primary consults, orthognathic insurance authorizations and other work. You are the intern, resident, chief and fellow. Word on the street is the fellowship is busy but somewhat disorganized due to the lack of support. Numbers are good but loss of their famous neurosurgeon has led to half the volume of vaults now (they used to do no open vaults but now doing a handful more) and a lot of wasted time on endoscopic craniectomies which you will never do again. (Most vaults are endoscopic and no neurosurgeon will ever let you do an endoscopic over them unless you’re family with the guy) They did 0 open vaults before with the old guy but now the new guy they do a handful more. Open vault experience is lower than other places. Low cleft orthognathics which makes sense because there’s poor followup in their patient population and patients cannot afford orthodontics or are compliant. They’re starting a residency program which will cut down the scutwork but it will also count down the caseload the fellow does including orthognathics and trauma. They do 30 double jaws (most are not cleft) a year which will probably all go to residents. A lot of fellowship applicants don’t apply due to location but El Paso is a very livable city. A lot of focus on absolute number of procedures but if you look closely at the log half of the procedures are teeth and adult trauma. On the bright side fellows get to cut a large portion of the cleft and cranio cases. The cleft experience is really the strongpoint of the fellowship. It is some of the best primary cleft experience. They go to Juarez once a month to do more cases. Numbers are good but fellows tend to get burnt out from the scutwork. General perspective from outside providers seems to be you’re basically doing a year long mission trip. Overall a solid fellowship but you will get worked to the bones in the middle of nowhere. Yates learned cleft the Shreveport way (Ghali) which is likely different from the fellowships created by the posnick fellows and Royal Melbourne graduates. El Paso and Oklahoma post some of the best cranial vault numbers. (El Paso more endoscopic and Oklahoma more open)
Tampa craniofacial - Heard big changes to this. this private practice has had partners leaving. The new trauma/orthognathics fellowship will likely take away from the orthognathics experience of the craniofacial fellow which was the strength of her fellowship. Still probably posts the highest orthognathics numbers 100 double jaws a year. More of an orthognathics fellowship with some cleft cranio otherwise average to below average cleft/craniofacial numbers. You’ll get to touch cleft. Seems a lot of graduates from this don’t actually practice cleft and end up in private practice. Cranial vault volume isn’t crazy. People like it for the orthognathics and applicability to private practice. Busy year as you’ll be on call for all the patients. Ricalde is an OG posnick fellow so she will train you well.
Buffalo - Newest fellowship. Only other fellowship other than Oklahoma based fully in a University which is looked well upon. It has solid craniofacial numbers since everything is done completely open. Cleft numbers are ok. Not a lot of cleft ortho, or alveolar cleft. The primary cleft is half done with a plastics attending who you just suction for and watch. Good salary. New attending coming on that is supposed to cut in cases with the other attending. (Not sure where they’re going to find volume for 2 attendings with a plastics person there). Buffalo is cold and not the greatest place to live. Orthognathics experience is low. Salary is great. Minimal scutwork as you have residents but you will take Markiewicz’s call on top of your own attending call.
WVU - closed
Pittsburgh - closed
Shreveport - closed
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I completed the Buffalo craniofacial fellowship, and I wanted to offer my two cents to the conversation. First of all, any of the available fellowships are excellent training programs. They certainly differ in many regards, but they all get you to a similar end point.
At Buffalo, you have the opportunity to work with Dr. Markiewicz, as well as a pediatric plastic surgeon. Dr. Markiewicz does the full scope of OMFS and pediatric craniomaxillofacial surgery. Like the last user posted, our open cranial vault experience is excellent. We also do a few endoscopic each year, but endoscopic is certainly not an emphasis of the program. (This may change this year with the addition of Dr. Aquino, an El Paso trained CF surgeon who did a lot of endoscopic procedures in fellowship). Exposure to cleft lip and palate is very good. As the fellow, you will operate on all lips and palates, split between Dr. Markiewicz and plastic surgery. You will be the primary trainee on ALL cleft cases, regardless of attending specialty. We also did a cleft trip to Guatemala, which was fun to enhance the fellowship training. As far as “cutting” goes, there’s definitely graduated autonomy with both attendings. You will tend to “split cases” with Dr. Markiewicz, whereas with plastics it tended to be all or nothing. Contrary to the previous post, you do not just suction for plastics. There was some of this at the beginning of the year, but by the end, some of my most independent cases were with the plastic surgeon. Also of note, he is a Millard-trained plastic surgeon, and you get to learn Millard’s principles from him. Pretty cool. You will do plenty of rhinoplasty, lip revisions, Abbe flaps, etc with the plastic surgeon as well.
Also contrary to the prior post, we actually did a lot of alveolar cleft bone grafts. So much so that you usually walk the chiefs or senior residents through these cases, especially the hip harvest. All ACBG are done with Dr. Markiewicz/OMFS. As with all cases, you will have graduated autonomy to complete both the recipient site and the hip harvest independently.
Regarding orthognathic surgery… it isn’t an orthognathic surgery fellowship. My thought is that this is a core OMFS skill, so most routine cases are typically done by the residents. That said, most of the time, I would scrub and either cut one side or walk the resident through their side (much more valuable to learn how to take someone else through a case). For cleft orthognathics, the fellow is, of course, the primary trainee and very involved in these cases. We did several cleft leforts and distractions throughout the year. Many of which were very complex cases and great learning.
We have a busy, large NICU, so you’ll see plenty of new baby consults. Lots of pierre robin sequence, clefts, craniosynostosis, and congenital anomalies/syndromes. Our neurosurgery department is immensely busy, and we work closely with them. Some odds and ends included craniofacial fibrous dysplasia cases, optic nerve decompression, etc.
Regarding “scut work”, yes this is fairly minimal. You’re there to learn, operate, and take care of the pediatric patients. The residents are wonderful and very helpful with orders. With that said, you’re ultimately responsible for ensuring quality care for the peds patients.
Craniofacial clinic is every other Friday. Very busy clinic, but fun and laid back. I actually really looked forward to clinic days. Usually you’ll be there with two residents. You see every patient with Dr. Markiewicz. The residents handle a lot of the notes, but it’s definitely good to help out when they’re busy.
Call- you take OMFS call one week per month at ECMC, the county hospital. Every third day (of your 1 week) is trauma. A typical week may have 1-2 infections and 1-2 operative traumas. Residents are primary call, and you are the attending. (i.e., no going to the ED for 2AM lip lacs). You do help cover call for the other attendings, but generally you never take more than 2 weeks per month. Always will have 2 weekends off per month. For peds call, this is sort of random. Pediatric trauma is rare, but when it happens, it usually comes to our service as a scheduled add on case. Peds trauma was welcomed, and definitely not a burden throughout the year.
Other things not mentioned— Dr. Markiewicz encourages research and provided many great opportunities to get involved. I attended several conferences and presented several abstracts. There was a fair bit of travel and networking, which was awesome to have in a fellowship.
I’m not from Buffalo, so the city was all new to me. Good food scene. Sports (Bills, Sabres). There’s a minor league baseball team downtown too, which can be fun (Bisons). If you want a bigger city for a weekend, Toronto is only 2 hours away is was great for concerts, food, etc. The resident arrange lots of dinners and social events, so this is fun too. The airport is super convenient, fast, and close to downtown.
Overall, it was an awesome fellowship. Great operative experience. Highly recommend checking out the fellowship if you’re interested in cleft and craniofacial surgery.
At Buffalo, you have the opportunity to work with Dr. Markiewicz, as well as a pediatric plastic surgeon. Dr. Markiewicz does the full scope of OMFS and pediatric craniomaxillofacial surgery. Like the last user posted, our open cranial vault experience is excellent. We also do a few endoscopic each year, but endoscopic is certainly not an emphasis of the program. (This may change this year with the addition of Dr. Aquino, an El Paso trained CF surgeon who did a lot of endoscopic procedures in fellowship). Exposure to cleft lip and palate is very good. As the fellow, you will operate on all lips and palates, split between Dr. Markiewicz and plastic surgery. You will be the primary trainee on ALL cleft cases, regardless of attending specialty. We also did a cleft trip to Guatemala, which was fun to enhance the fellowship training. As far as “cutting” goes, there’s definitely graduated autonomy with both attendings. You will tend to “split cases” with Dr. Markiewicz, whereas with plastics it tended to be all or nothing. Contrary to the previous post, you do not just suction for plastics. There was some of this at the beginning of the year, but by the end, some of my most independent cases were with the plastic surgeon. Also of note, he is a Millard-trained plastic surgeon, and you get to learn Millard’s principles from him. Pretty cool. You will do plenty of rhinoplasty, lip revisions, Abbe flaps, etc with the plastic surgeon as well.
Also contrary to the prior post, we actually did a lot of alveolar cleft bone grafts. So much so that you usually walk the chiefs or senior residents through these cases, especially the hip harvest. All ACBG are done with Dr. Markiewicz/OMFS. As with all cases, you will have graduated autonomy to complete both the recipient site and the hip harvest independently.
Regarding orthognathic surgery… it isn’t an orthognathic surgery fellowship. My thought is that this is a core OMFS skill, so most routine cases are typically done by the residents. That said, most of the time, I would scrub and either cut one side or walk the resident through their side (much more valuable to learn how to take someone else through a case). For cleft orthognathics, the fellow is, of course, the primary trainee and very involved in these cases. We did several cleft leforts and distractions throughout the year. Many of which were very complex cases and great learning.
We have a busy, large NICU, so you’ll see plenty of new baby consults. Lots of pierre robin sequence, clefts, craniosynostosis, and congenital anomalies/syndromes. Our neurosurgery department is immensely busy, and we work closely with them. Some odds and ends included craniofacial fibrous dysplasia cases, optic nerve decompression, etc.
Regarding “scut work”, yes this is fairly minimal. You’re there to learn, operate, and take care of the pediatric patients. The residents are wonderful and very helpful with orders. With that said, you’re ultimately responsible for ensuring quality care for the peds patients.
Craniofacial clinic is every other Friday. Very busy clinic, but fun and laid back. I actually really looked forward to clinic days. Usually you’ll be there with two residents. You see every patient with Dr. Markiewicz. The residents handle a lot of the notes, but it’s definitely good to help out when they’re busy.
Call- you take OMFS call one week per month at ECMC, the county hospital. Every third day (of your 1 week) is trauma. A typical week may have 1-2 infections and 1-2 operative traumas. Residents are primary call, and you are the attending. (i.e., no going to the ED for 2AM lip lacs). You do help cover call for the other attendings, but generally you never take more than 2 weeks per month. Always will have 2 weekends off per month. For peds call, this is sort of random. Pediatric trauma is rare, but when it happens, it usually comes to our service as a scheduled add on case. Peds trauma was welcomed, and definitely not a burden throughout the year.
Other things not mentioned— Dr. Markiewicz encourages research and provided many great opportunities to get involved. I attended several conferences and presented several abstracts. There was a fair bit of travel and networking, which was awesome to have in a fellowship.
I’m not from Buffalo, so the city was all new to me. Good food scene. Sports (Bills, Sabres). There’s a minor league baseball team downtown too, which can be fun (Bisons). If you want a bigger city for a weekend, Toronto is only 2 hours away is was great for concerts, food, etc. The resident arrange lots of dinners and social events, so this is fun too. The airport is super convenient, fast, and close to downtown.
Overall, it was an awesome fellowship. Great operative experience. Highly recommend checking out the fellowship if you’re interested in cleft and craniofacial surgery.
Congrats! That’s an awesome feat to finish a fellowship year. Great information on a newer fellowship that people do not know about yet. I will say that orthognathics is trending towards no longer being a routine procedure. A lot of graduates are not trained well in this. If you took a list of the top program in the country, maybe only 30-40% will train you to be a competent orthognathics surgeon hence the advent of OGS fellowships. If you come from a top program, sure this is no issue but if you don’t then, it is a major issue. Total number of Orthognathic pracitictioners are down too but that’s because DSOs have only accelerated this.
Best TMJ/Orthognathic/Full Scope OMFS Fellowships
Anybody have any information regarding the various TMJ, orthognathic, and overall "full scope" OMFS fellowships out there? Which have good reputations and provide quality training and what is the overall thought on these fellowships by the community as a whole? Thanks in advance.
forums.studentdoctor.net
To add if pediatric trauma is of interest, the best fellowship for that is Arnold Palmer as they have the most comprehensive pediatric trauma experience. They will do PEEK implants for craniectomies for the neurosurgeons regularly and will operate on crazy traumas.
