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OMFS and plastic surgery
- Thread starter bigTOOTHguy
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Gentledental1
First of all, lets not use the term "plastic". Thats reserved for plastic surgeons and isn't in the definition of what you're asking. There are three specialties that will generally pursue a fellowship in facial cosmetic surgery. They are plastic surgery, otolaryngology, and oral and maxillofacial surgery. The requirement to gain acceptance into this one year fellowship is to have completed a residency in one of these specialities (and more often than not you must have an active medical license). After that, the fellowship is the same, give or take training facilities, location, and resources. Depending on who runs the fellowship, they may only accept applicants from a certain specialty background, while there are some that will accept any type of previous training, it all just depends.
4 vs 6 year: One big reason OMFS will obtain a medical degree is to make them more attractive applicants to various fellowship programs. By convention, many 4 year trained guys aren't allowed to apply. That is not to say its impossible, there was a craniofacial fellow at shreveport a few years back that had already completed a cancer fellowship, he was a four year guy. The MD certainly makes it easier though.
Don't ever think the medical degree is a waste of time. It is a "waste" of money if thats what your priority is. However, the knowledge gained tends to be very useful (though not legally necessary to practice the traditional scope of OMFS. Traditional does not include fellowship training.)
4 vs 6 year: One big reason OMFS will obtain a medical degree is to make them more attractive applicants to various fellowship programs. By convention, many 4 year trained guys aren't allowed to apply. That is not to say its impossible, there was a craniofacial fellow at shreveport a few years back that had already completed a cancer fellowship, he was a four year guy. The MD certainly makes it easier though.
Don't ever think the medical degree is a waste of time. It is a "waste" of money if thats what your priority is. However, the knowledge gained tends to be very useful (though not legally necessary to practice the traditional scope of OMFS. Traditional does not include fellowship training.)
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Gentledental1
If you go into OMFS you will never be bored. Even if you limit yourself to private practice wisdom teeth and implants, you will still throw down the occasional orthognathic case in the OR, deal with some benign pathology resection, administer anesthesia... theres no way you'd ever be bored.
There are (fairly rare) some oral surgeons who complete plastic surgery residencies after their OMFS residency. They get an advanced standing, similar to the approach taken by general surgeons who then match to plastic surgery. It simply is a ridiculously long time to be a resident. If your goal is to perform facial cosmetic procedures, then you just need to do the fellowship. If you want to practice the full scope of plastic surgery (burns, hand recons, boobs, butts, liposuction, free flaps...etc), then you'd have to complete a residency in plastic surgery.
There is absolutely a disadvantage to going a dental route if your goal is to be a plastic surgeon. It is far faster to do medical school, then a combined plastic surgery residency rather than dental school, oral surgery (with medical school), then plastic surgery residency.
Just a reminder. Don't confuse the word "plastics" with "cosmetic". They're completely different by definition.
EDIT: I forgot to answer your original question about if you're going about this the right way. I think you're asking some good questions, but you're early in your training so you probably can't appreciate what the right questions are to ask. I know far less about plastic surgery than I do about oral surgery. If you're worried about being bored, check out AAOMS's website for the public: http://myoms.org
There are (fairly rare) some oral surgeons who complete plastic surgery residencies after their OMFS residency. They get an advanced standing, similar to the approach taken by general surgeons who then match to plastic surgery. It simply is a ridiculously long time to be a resident. If your goal is to perform facial cosmetic procedures, then you just need to do the fellowship. If you want to practice the full scope of plastic surgery (burns, hand recons, boobs, butts, liposuction, free flaps...etc), then you'd have to complete a residency in plastic surgery.
There is absolutely a disadvantage to going a dental route if your goal is to be a plastic surgeon. It is far faster to do medical school, then a combined plastic surgery residency rather than dental school, oral surgery (with medical school), then plastic surgery residency.
Just a reminder. Don't confuse the word "plastics" with "cosmetic". They're completely different by definition.
EDIT: I forgot to answer your original question about if you're going about this the right way. I think you're asking some good questions, but you're early in your training so you probably can't appreciate what the right questions are to ask. I know far less about plastic surgery than I do about oral surgery. If you're worried about being bored, check out AAOMS's website for the public: http://myoms.org
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Gentledental1
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Gentledental1
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Well the long and the short is if you want to do plastic surgery your headed in the wrong direction. If you want to facial cosmetic surgery the MD or non MD course of OMS will not make or break you. There are cosmetic fellowships out there but there are some very successful single degree OMS's out there that do only facial cosmetics without fellowship training. Joe Niamtu is just one example in Virginia. There are other OMS's that do full body palastics (breast augs and tummy tucks on a routine basis). If you want to do that then you probably need to do an 6 year OMS and plastics after that. Most fellowship programs do not "require" an MD any longer but it does make it harder as a single degree just because they are concerned about your ability to put what they are teaching you into practice when you are done. Hope that helps
