Hey everyone,
I’m writing this post to give some information about the pediatric craniofacial fellowship offered at University of Florida, Jacksonville. Currently the position is open for a one year fellowship starting this July ’19. There is little information online available to interested OMFS residents and so I wanted to share my experience. I’m the current fellow and I’m halfway through my fellowship year, so I think I have a good handle on what the overall experience will look like.
Fellowship Director:Barry Steinberg MD, Ph.D, DDS. Its hard to imagine someone with more experience to train under. He’s been treating complex pediatric congenital disorders longer than almost any practicing surgeon in the country. Very humbling experience to have someone like that focus all their attention on you to teach you their craft. He will be one of my life long mentors and friends.
Fellowship Co-director:Nathan Ranalli, MD. Fellowship trained pediatric neurosurgeon, we do all our cranial vaults with him. Super nice and intelligent doctor that is really invested in training the craniofacial fellows.
Fellowship Faculty:
Plastics:
Sarah Fernandez, MD: young and recently out of fellowship 3 years ago. I do the majority of my primary lips and palates with her and Dr. Snyder. I can say she’s one of my good friends now and after the first 1 or 2 lips/palates she really lets me operate the entire case.
Brett Snyder, MD: Standford fellowship trained. Also a pleasure to work with, hilarious guy in the OR and really makes an effort to put the scalpel in my hands for the entire case.
Jon Obi, MD: Did his residency under Millard, again, super nice guy to work with.
ENT:
Bruce Maddern and Andrew Simonsen: both of them really get the fellow involved; I’ve done the majority of my pediatric airway surgery with them. Also great about inviting me to non-craniofacial cases, I’ve done pediatric neck dissections and submandibular gland removals with both of them as well as all my pharyngeal flaps and sphincter pharyngoplasties.
It's a one year fellowship that will train you in the full scope of pediatric craniofacial surgery. Approximate numbers to expect from some of the bigger categories:
Cranial vault reshaping/endoscopic vaults/frontoorbital advancements: 30 cases
Primary lips: 30-35 cases
Primary palates: 30-35 cases
Alveolar bone grafts/secondary palatoplasties: 30-35
Neonatal tracheostomies/airway surgeries: 10
Pharyngeal flaps/sphincter pharyngoplasties: 5-10
Lefort II/III HALO distraction: 3-5
Neonatal mandibular distractions: 15
Rhinoplasties: 10-15
Palatal lengthening furlow: 10
Pharyngeal wall fillers/fat graft: 3-5
In addition you’ll perform cases that are rare and so the total number I’ll do this year is unpredictable. So far I’ve done multiple costochondral ear reconstructions for microtia, branchial cleft cyst removal, a bunch of random pathology like ameloblastomas, OKC and dentigerous cysts, ranulas. ..etc
A huge benefit that I see to this fellowship is how multidisciplinary it is. Its really nice to be trained by not only Dr. Steinberg but also a neurosurgeon, three plastic surgeons and two ent’s. All of them have an exclusive interest in training me and it is really refreshing to get cross-discipline perspective on the different cases we do.
We take 100% of the pediatric trauma call at Wolfson Children’s Hospital, a level 1 pediatric trauma hospital. Dr. Steinberg also takes one week of adult trauma call every 5th week at UF-Jacksonville, a very busy OMFS residency program. He lets the fellow take the reigns with teaching and being involved with the residents on these cases, which is great for keeping you from getting rusty on adult trauma.
There is a two week long mission trip to Vietnam every year that Dr. Steinberg has been doing for over 20 years that I’m really looking forward to going on this March. From what I hear its non-stop operating on cleft and craniofacial kids all day as well as the adventure of going deep into Vietnam.
Intangible benefits: If you’re studying for your OMFS boards like I am currently, it really is nice to be involved with a rigorous academic residency like UF Jacksonville. I go to all the residents lectures, journal clubs, and theres a board review course coming up in a week I’m going to go to.
Pay is PGY-7.
So in summary, I’m having a fantastic fellowship year and I don’t think theres many places you can get as good of training. Any interested chief residents or recent graduates who don’t know what they’re doing next year, I highly recommend thinking about doing this fellowship. Link below for information on applying.
Pediatric Maxillofacial & Craniofacial Surgery Fellowship » Education Programs » Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery » College of Medicine – Jacksonville » University of Florida
I’m writing this post to give some information about the pediatric craniofacial fellowship offered at University of Florida, Jacksonville. Currently the position is open for a one year fellowship starting this July ’19. There is little information online available to interested OMFS residents and so I wanted to share my experience. I’m the current fellow and I’m halfway through my fellowship year, so I think I have a good handle on what the overall experience will look like.
Fellowship Director:Barry Steinberg MD, Ph.D, DDS. Its hard to imagine someone with more experience to train under. He’s been treating complex pediatric congenital disorders longer than almost any practicing surgeon in the country. Very humbling experience to have someone like that focus all their attention on you to teach you their craft. He will be one of my life long mentors and friends.
Fellowship Co-director:Nathan Ranalli, MD. Fellowship trained pediatric neurosurgeon, we do all our cranial vaults with him. Super nice and intelligent doctor that is really invested in training the craniofacial fellows.
Fellowship Faculty:
Plastics:
Sarah Fernandez, MD: young and recently out of fellowship 3 years ago. I do the majority of my primary lips and palates with her and Dr. Snyder. I can say she’s one of my good friends now and after the first 1 or 2 lips/palates she really lets me operate the entire case.
Brett Snyder, MD: Standford fellowship trained. Also a pleasure to work with, hilarious guy in the OR and really makes an effort to put the scalpel in my hands for the entire case.
Jon Obi, MD: Did his residency under Millard, again, super nice guy to work with.
ENT:
Bruce Maddern and Andrew Simonsen: both of them really get the fellow involved; I’ve done the majority of my pediatric airway surgery with them. Also great about inviting me to non-craniofacial cases, I’ve done pediatric neck dissections and submandibular gland removals with both of them as well as all my pharyngeal flaps and sphincter pharyngoplasties.
It's a one year fellowship that will train you in the full scope of pediatric craniofacial surgery. Approximate numbers to expect from some of the bigger categories:
Cranial vault reshaping/endoscopic vaults/frontoorbital advancements: 30 cases
Primary lips: 30-35 cases
Primary palates: 30-35 cases
Alveolar bone grafts/secondary palatoplasties: 30-35
Neonatal tracheostomies/airway surgeries: 10
Pharyngeal flaps/sphincter pharyngoplasties: 5-10
Lefort II/III HALO distraction: 3-5
Neonatal mandibular distractions: 15
Rhinoplasties: 10-15
Palatal lengthening furlow: 10
Pharyngeal wall fillers/fat graft: 3-5
In addition you’ll perform cases that are rare and so the total number I’ll do this year is unpredictable. So far I’ve done multiple costochondral ear reconstructions for microtia, branchial cleft cyst removal, a bunch of random pathology like ameloblastomas, OKC and dentigerous cysts, ranulas. ..etc
A huge benefit that I see to this fellowship is how multidisciplinary it is. Its really nice to be trained by not only Dr. Steinberg but also a neurosurgeon, three plastic surgeons and two ent’s. All of them have an exclusive interest in training me and it is really refreshing to get cross-discipline perspective on the different cases we do.
We take 100% of the pediatric trauma call at Wolfson Children’s Hospital, a level 1 pediatric trauma hospital. Dr. Steinberg also takes one week of adult trauma call every 5th week at UF-Jacksonville, a very busy OMFS residency program. He lets the fellow take the reigns with teaching and being involved with the residents on these cases, which is great for keeping you from getting rusty on adult trauma.
There is a two week long mission trip to Vietnam every year that Dr. Steinberg has been doing for over 20 years that I’m really looking forward to going on this March. From what I hear its non-stop operating on cleft and craniofacial kids all day as well as the adventure of going deep into Vietnam.
Intangible benefits: If you’re studying for your OMFS boards like I am currently, it really is nice to be involved with a rigorous academic residency like UF Jacksonville. I go to all the residents lectures, journal clubs, and theres a board review course coming up in a week I’m going to go to.
Pay is PGY-7.
So in summary, I’m having a fantastic fellowship year and I don’t think theres many places you can get as good of training. Any interested chief residents or recent graduates who don’t know what they’re doing next year, I highly recommend thinking about doing this fellowship. Link below for information on applying.
Pediatric Maxillofacial & Craniofacial Surgery Fellowship » Education Programs » Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery » College of Medicine – Jacksonville » University of Florida
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