Medical license for 6 years OS

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PaxRoma

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Pertaining to those who have done 6 years OS training, do you have any difficulty obtaining medical license in states requiring 2-3 years ACGME accredited training (Nevada, Maine, etc)?

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Pertaining to those who have done 6 years OS training, do you have any difficulty obtaining medical license in states requiring 2-3 years ACGME accredited training (Nevada, Maine, etc)?
If you do not get two years of general surgery you will have difficulty obtaining a license in those states.
 
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I heard you can petition the medical board to approve the oms years outside of gen surgery training. Is this accurate?
No. maybe the anesthesia yrs or months on Medicine spent as a resident.
To be honest, if you are headed for private practice and doing mostly dentoalveolar, implants/grafting and trauma, then having a medical license offers little benefit
 
I heard you can petition the medical board to approve the oms years outside of gen surgery training. Is this accurate?

We do 6 months gen surg...and the medical license is not an issue. Depends on the program. Time “off service” is always wasted time (except maybe 2 months of anesthesia)...make sure you take this into account when choosing a program.
 
We do 6 months gen surg...and the medical license is not an issue. Depends on the program. Time “off service” is always wasted time (except maybe 2 months of anesthesia)...make sure you take this into account when choosing a program.
Not as simple as that. I’m assuming your residency is in a one year state. In 2 year states, which are expanding, you must have 2 years credit. No exception. If it’s not officially given to you through your residency, you can petition the department of general surgery from where you did your residency to grant you one. Unfortunately, that is not always successful depending on your program. Just depends what kind of risk you are willing to take. If you are in a 2 year state without a 2 year certificate, you are technically not allowed to advertise that you are an md. This is an under mentioned issue in omfs. I forsee some 6 year omfs programs not achieving their 30 month minimum because they are being forced to do too many years of medical school and having poor arrangements with gen surg.
 
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It is that simple. It’s officially given to us...that was my whole point. What programs do you know of that have had issues with this?
The majority. Thanks to GG, Shreveport (where you are resident?) offers unique curriculum benefits that most other programs, especially with narrow minded medical schools/gen surg, will never get. To my point, my recommendation: choose your program wisely, as you did.
 
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No. maybe the anesthesia yrs or months on Medicine spent as a resident.
To be honest, if you are headed for private practice and doing mostly dentoalveolar, implants/grafting and trauma, then having a medical license offers little benefit

It's not false, yes you can. It's well established and many OMS do it. How successful they are, not sure, but my sample size of n=2, both got their license with 1 year gen surg.
 
It is that simple. It’s officially given to us...that was my whole point. What programs do you know of that have had issues with this?

We are in a good spot. I know of a graduate who had trouble obtaining medical licensure because the general surgery director would not give him credit for 1 year, when he did 6 months. He had to fight it for a year before they gave in.
 
It's not false, yes you can. It's well established and many OMS do it. How successful they are, not sure, but my sample size of n=2, both got their license with 1 year gen surg.
Curious , which state(s)?
Been practicing in the field for awhile, pretty broad group of colleagues scattered throughout the country. It's not well established as you suggest. Unfortunately state boards do not find equivalency in the OMS years. Sample size N >>> 2.
 
After a brief perusing of acgme.org I couldn't find a link to something that gave state-by-state requirements for licensure. Does anyone know of a better resources to which they can direct people looking to see where their state/states stand on this?
 
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California will increase their medical licensing requirement to at least 3 ACGME years starting in January 2020. Will any 6 yrs program satisfy this criteria?


My understanding is that Drexel is the only program in the country that offers a 3-year certificate. I think the bigger question is how it's going to affect the training in California programs? Going from 1 year to 3 years is an enormous jump even if those programs would consider their chief year as 3rd year ACGME training.
 
California will increase their medical licensing requirement to at least 3 ACGME years starting in January 2020. Will any 6 yrs program satisfy this criteria?


I received a 1 year ACGME general surgery training certificate from UNC and had no problem getting a California Medical License. Having said that, who knows what will happen in the future.
 
I received a 1 year ACGME general surgery training certificate from UNC and had no problem getting a California Medical License. Having said that, who knows what will happen in the future.
Looks like you got your California medical license just in time.
Check it out: mbc.ca.gov/Licensees/2020_Changes.aspx
Effective January 1st, 2020: Requiring 3 years ACGME with 24 months consecutive. Curious how the Cali MD OMFS programs will adjust.
 
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We do 6 months gen surg...and the medical license is not an issue. Depends on the program. Time “off service” is always wasted time (except maybe 2 months of anesthesia)...make sure you take this into account when choosing a program.


I was wrong. Best to check with your program and intended state...they do deny medical licenses to OMFS.
 
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Interesting. I wonder why OMS months on service aren't considered surgical training by the medical board.
 
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Interesting. I wonder why OMS months on service aren't considered surgical training by the medical board.

Unfortunately, won't happen until the specialty becomes recognized by ACGME. Some states count your chief year and I wonder if this would be the case in California.
 
So what does this mean for the 6 year CA OMFS programs? Surely they cannot shut down..
 
So what does this mean for the 6 year CA OMFS programs? Surely they cannot shut down..


I don't know much just as a dental student; however, Loma Linda had both 4 and 6 years until a couple years ago when they switched to only 6 years. I haven't heard anything about switching back or to a 4 year completely which would seem like the easiest option. This leads me to believe they have it handled well. (Assuming other 6 years also).

They have all had time to get things in order, I wouldn't be surprised if they all worked some deal to count on-service time towards it.

Now for people coming into CA from other states 6 year programs, that would be a more difficult situation I imagine.
 
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does it matter if you are medically licensed in the state? maybe for hospital privileges for more fellowship type procedures? it's so stupid that 6 years have to go through this bs
 
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does it matter if you are medically licensed in the state? maybe for hospital privileges for more fellowship type procedures? it's so stupid that 6 years have to go through this bs

Yes it does apparently matter for privileges at certain places. You also cannot advertise or provide physician services without an active license. I don’t know specifically how that’s enforced but I have heard that it can be.
 
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After doing some research, both CA and NV have provisions that allow 6-year OMFS residents to apply for medical licensure despite 3 year requirements.

(2) Has completed at least 36 months of postgraduate education, not less than 24 months of which must have been completed as a resident after receiving a medical degree from a combined dental and medical degree program approved by the Board


(2) Existing law requires an applicant for a physician’s and surgeon’s license to complete, among other things, 36 months of postgraduate training approved by the California Medical Board, including 4 months of general medicine training obtained in specified postgraduate training programs. Existing law authorizes an applicant who completes 24 of the 36 months as a resident after receiving a medical degree from a combined dental and medical degree program accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation or approved by the board to be eligible for licensure.

(c) An applicant who has completed at least 36 months of board-approved postgraduate training, not less than 24 months of which was completed as part of an oral and maxillofacial surgery postgraduate training program as a resident after receiving a medical degree from a combined dental and medical degree program accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) or approved by the board, shall be eligible for licensure. Oral and maxillofacial surgery residency programs accredited by CODA shall be approved as postgraduate training required by this section if the applicant attended the program as part of a combined dental and medical degree program accredited by CODA. These applicants shall not have to comply with subdivision (b).
 
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Yes it does apparently matter for privileges at certain places. You also cannot advertise or provide physician services without an active license. I don’t know specifically how that’s enforced but I have heard that it can be.
My (likely ignorant) question here is, if scope is the same for 4yr vs 6yr surgeons, what exactly would "advertising or providing physician services" look like for an OMFS? If the major benefit of a 6yr program is additional training and understanding in managing complex patients, but without changing scope of practice, then what functional difficulty is there for an MD OMFS in practice who doesn't have his physician license vs. one who does?
 
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My (likely ignorant) question here is, if scope is the same for 4yr vs 6yr surgeons, what exactly would "advertising or providing physician services" look like for an OMFS? If the major benefit of a 6yr program is additional training and understanding in managing complex patients, but without changing scope of practice, then what functional difficulty is there for an MD OMFS in practice who doesn't have his physician license vs. one who does?

There is no functional difficulty if you do bread and butter OMFS. Some hospitals will deny privledges to providers without an MD...which is what happened to our graduate. But you also cannot advertise yourself as a clinician with your MD degree title present. Meaning a website, business card, referral slip, or any other place you describe your services cannot have your MD on your title unless you are licensed.

I am not going to get into the single vs dual degree discussion as it has been discussed ad nauseam.
 
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Some hospitals will deny privledges to providers without an MD...which is what happened to our graduate. But you also cannot advertise yourself as a clinician with your MD degree title present. Meaning a website, business card, referral slip, or any other place you describe your services cannot have your MD on your title unless you are licensed.
Thanks for the insight, that’s exactly what I was wondering. Not trying to start a 4 v. 6 debate haha, just wanted a better idea of what the concerns were. I didn’t realize you literally couldn’t say “MD” without maintaining a license, I figured if you had the degree, you had the degree.
 
There is no functional difficulty if you do bread and butter OMFS. Some hospitals will deny privledges to providers without an MD...which is what happened to our graduate. But you also cannot advertise yourself as a clinician with your MD degree title present. Meaning a website, business card, referral slip, or any other place you describe your services cannot have your MD on your title unless you are licensed.

I am not going to get into the single vs dual degree discussion as it has been discussed ad nauseam.

There are a lot of 6 year guys in Nevada that advertise themselves as MD so I'm not sure how much this is actually enforced.
 
That may be very true. I don’t know how many of them actually have medical licenses though.

Does anyone know if the BU 6yr OMFS program allows for medical licensure? Their site says that they do not guarantee medical licensure in any state and that applicants should look up requirements for licensure in each state.
Their 6 yr program only has 8 months on General Surgery service, when I know MA requires 2 years of ACGME (general surgery) training to get a full medical license.
Do residents at least get a limited medical license during residency?
 
After doing some research, both CA and NV have provisions that allow 6-year OMFS residents to apply for medical licensure despite 3 year requirements.

(2) Has completed at least 36 months of postgraduate education, not less than 24 months of which must have been completed as a resident after receiving a medical degree from a combined dental and medical degree program approved by the Board


(2) Existing law requires an applicant for a physician’s and surgeon’s license to complete, among other things, 36 months of postgraduate training approved by the California Medical Board, including 4 months of general medicine training obtained in specified postgraduate training programs. Existing law authorizes an applicant who completes 24 of the 36 months as a resident after receiving a medical degree from a combined dental and medical degree program accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation or approved by the board to be eligible for licensure.

(c) An applicant who has completed at least 36 months of board-approved postgraduate training, not less than 24 months of which was completed as part of an oral and maxillofacial surgery postgraduate training program as a resident after receiving a medical degree from a combined dental and medical degree program accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) or approved by the board, shall be eligible for licensure. Oral and maxillofacial surgery residency programs accredited by CODA shall be approved as postgraduate training required by this section if the applicant attended the program as part of a combined dental and medical degree program accredited by CODA. These applicants shall not have to comply with subdivision (b).
So a dual degree OMFS program with at least 24 months of any type of residency training (i.e., time spent on service, gen surg, anesthesia, etc.) after MD conferral would suffice for medical licensure in CA and Nevada? Do I have that right? If so, wouldn't the majority (if not, all) dual-degree programs accomplish that, as most get medical school out of the way in the first half of the residency? Are there any states with stricter requirements than Nevada and California?
 
So a dual degree OMFS program with at least 24 months of any type of residency training (i.e., time spent on service, gen surg, anesthesia, etc.) after MD conferral would suffice for medical licensure in CA and Nevada? Do I have that right? If so, wouldn't the majority (if not, all) dual-degree programs accomplish that, as most get medical school out of the way in the first half of the residency? Are there any states with stricter requirements than Nevada and California?

It’s 3 years and no...as of now Nevada (only one i can speak for) requires 3 years of acgme training...which isn’t OMFS. Almost no program does that.

I think all the states will go to at least a couple years acgme but have an exception for OMFS.
 
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