University of Cincinnati Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Program (Updated 2023)
48-month OMFS Certificate Program with Optional MD Certificate
3 residents per year plus 1 non-categorical intern
Rotations:
32 + 4 months on OMFS service
6 months Anesthesia (4 months UCMC, 2 months Children’s Hospital)
4 months Surgery (2 months Trauma, 1 month SICU (currently trialing 6 weeks and 6 weeks), and 1 month Gen Surg
2 months Medicine
1 month ENT, 1 month Plastics, 1 month ED, 1 month India rotation (elective Cleft rotation in Bangalore)
Our hospital rotations are on 4-week blocks. So this essentially gives us 13 blocks per year, which is why the above rotations add up to 52 “months.” This adds 4 extra weeks per year for OMFS.
Contact:
Program Website:
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Residency | Surgery | UC Cincinnati College of Medicine - ..WB1PRD01W-Med.uc.edu
Instagram: @ucomfs
Yvonne Hawkins – Program Coordinator (
[email protected])
Full-Time Attendings:
Deepak Krishnan, DDS, FACS - Chief of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery (Residency: Emory) ABOMS board of directors
Mike Grau Jr., DMD – Program Director (Residency: University of Cincinnati)
Hether Khosa, DDS (Residency: University of Maryland)
James Phero, DDS, MD (Residency: University of North Carolina)
David Morrison, DMD (Residency: Parkland) AAOMS vice president 2022-23, AAOMS President 2023-24
Part-Time Attendings (for didactics and maybe the occasional call coverage, but not for clinic/OR)
Jimmie Harper, DDS- Attending at CCHMC pediatric clinic, Didactics, Medicine/Anesthesia Course, Cadaver Lab sessions
Andres Flores, DDS, MS- Oral and Maxillofacial Pathologist - Pathology Didactics
Randall Stastny, DMD - Didactics - Pathology/Board Review
Gary Robins, DMD - TMJ and Orofacial Pain specialist
Mi Young Kim, DDS - Oral and Maxillofacial Prosthodontist
Richard Campbell, DMD, MS - Orthodontist and Dentofacial Orthopedics
Krishnamurthy Bonanthaya - MBBS, MDS, FDSRCS, FFDRCS - Oral and Maxillofacial/Craniofacial Surgeon - Bangalore, India
Staff:
Yvonne Hawkins - Program Coordinator (
[email protected])
Kassie Hooker - Clinical Research Coordinator
Tad Peeples - Assistant Director, Business & Administration
Clinics:
Faculty Practice Clinic: 3 operatories, 2 consult rooms, 1 RN, 2 surgical assistants, 1 NP that see's exams and discharges patients from the hospital, implant coordinator, 1 maxillofacial prosthodontist, 1 TMD-orofacial pain specialist, 1 oral and maxillofacial pathologist
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Clinic: Soon to open (2023) and will be staffed by Dr. Harper. Currently we do pediatric sedations/breath downs at our faculty practice (MAB), but the goal is to have a dedicated clinic at CCHMC for pediatric patients. We have 2 anesthesia machines in this clinic and it will likely be 1 day/week.
Holmes Hospital Clinic: 4 operatories, 3 consult rooms, 3 RN's, 4 surgical assistants, insurance coordinator, research coordinator, 2 OR schedulers
Structure:
1st Year:
Mostly on OMFS Service (1 month ED, 1 month Medicine, 1 month Anesthesia CPC)
Interns are the work-horse of the clinic: seeing consults, post-ops, lots of extractions and biopsies under local. There is always an intern scrubbed in the OR as well, they typically alternate weeks, so you’ll be in the OR for the entire week at a time. While in the OR, you will be primary operator for extraction cases and other simple cases. For orthognathics, trauma, TMJ cases, you not only assist but help close the case. Interns run the VA clinic as well. We
do not close reduce mandibles (wire shut) in the ED, nor do we take out teeth or drain minor infections in the ED - they just follow-up in clinic the next day. There is a non-categorical intern that joins the first year class and they are considered the same as our categorical intern and get equal treatment and experience- OR and clinical experience is the same as other interns. They also rotate to the VA where they place implants.
2nd Year:
Mostly off-service (5 months Anesthesia, 1 month Medicine, 2 month Trauma, 1 month SICU, the rest on OMFS)
Second year residents are pretty much never around. We occasionally forget they’re a part of the program until they randomly show up for free food. All-in-all, it’s a pretty good year. Anesthesia is nice, you don’t take any call, and you have every weekend off for 5 straight months. While you’re on Anesthesia, you function independently and completely as one of their residents, run your own room, get tons of intubations, lines, etc. You’ll do 4 months total at UC and 2 months at Children’s Hospital (#1 ranked Children's Hospital nationally). Our anesthesia experience (both hospital based and clinic based) is definitely one of the highlights of our residency. At UC you will be the anesthesia provider for various surgeries ranging from ICU level of care with multiple drips to quick and easy outpatient surgeries. Often you will be the anesthesia provider for the OMFS cases. Although this isn't always preferred since many OMFS cases require nasoendotracheal intubation (oral intubation is preferred for airway experience). You will be comfortable with every type of anesthesia: TIVA, GETA, LMA, Open airway. The attending is only around for induction and wake up. Since attendings have multiple rooms and residents, sometimes they won't be around for wakeup. During your 2 months at Children's Hospital you will far surpass the required number of pediatric anesthesia case requirements. You will intubate babies only a few weeks old, sevo breath downs every day, place IV's in babies, ketamine darts and anything that comes with pediatric anesthesia. You will be the provider for very medically complex children at CCHMC. Patient's travel from across the world to be treated at CCHMC. We have recent grads that have limited their practice to pediatrics and routinely perform general anesthetics on 2 year olds.
Our Trauma, SICU and Medicine rotations are probably on par with other programs. We have a very busy general surgery trauma service. You will be closing lacs and GSW's not only on the face, but everywhere you can imagine. You place several chest tubes and occasionally go to the OR with your senior if you are caught up with notes/junior tasks.
While on service, your responsibilities increase. After you’ve finished your anesthesia rotation, you are able to perform sedations in clinic. One of our 2nd year residents logged over 80 sedations in 3 months this year. You take the occasional call night, cover cases in the OR (especially at Children’s where it’s just you and the Attending operating), help keep the interns in line, etc.
3rd Year:
Back on service for the most part (1 month ENT, 1 month Plastics, 1 month Gen Surg, 1 month India Cleft rotation, the rest on OMFS).
While on service, the third years have increased responsibilities such as running the faculty-clinic and the resident-clinic. You will do a lot of office-based procedures/sedations. By the end of your third year, you have easily surpassed the minimum required on service anesthesia cases needed to graduate. Third year residents do about 50 IVS/GA cases per month, so they will finish third year with 400-500 IVS/GA cases as both the surgeon and anesthesia provider. Cases are never split. The only time we use a two provider anesthesia model is when we are using an anesthesia machine with LMA/intubated patient. You will be the main operator with OMS attending at Thursday CCHMC OR cases and Friday UCMC OR cases. You also take back-up/senior-level call on occasion when the chief residents cannot, including covering their OR cases if needed. At the faculty clinic, third years are doing all of the procedures with faculty supervision as needed. Occasionally the attending will help out if you need a bail out or if you are getting behind in the schedule. The faculty clinic has only 1 third year resident and on average 8-10 surgeries scheduled per day (more advanced ambulatory cases implant/dentoalveolar/TMJ/occasional cosmetic procedure) so by the end of third year you will be very fast/efficient and would be able step right into private practice and produce from day 1. Occasionally during the year, especially near the end of the year, third years will start splitting big cases (orthognathic/trauma/TJR) with the chief or taking the lead on the case.
On plastics residents get exposure to rhinoplasty, primary CL&P, blephs, free flaps, facial trauma, burns etc
The entire month on ENT is on the Head and Neck service so residents will see flaps and neck dissections every day. The Head and neck service is here is very busy and routinely does 2-3 flaps daily.
The India cleft rotation exposes residents to prenatal counseling, nasoalveolar moulding, nutritional counseling, primary CL&P surgery, alveolar cleft grafting, revision surgery for lip and palate, cleft nose rhinoplasty, cleft orthognathics, distraction osteogenesis. The india rotation is at the Smile Train Leadership Center in India which completes over 800 cleft related surgeries per year. The volume of clefts seen here is far greater than most places in the United States. Residents can expect to log over 50 major cleft surgeries during their month in India.
4th year:
12 months OMS. The chief resident has three main responsibilities: being the main operating resident, being the clinic-chief for the resident clinic, and being the chief-resident senior on call. You alternate between these roles on a weekly basis. For example, one week you will be covering all the operating room cases, the next you will be on call/operating in the VA/emergent cases, the next you will be in the resident clinic strictly doing sedations/procedures. In general, if you have a bigger case that you have worked-up (orthognathic, TJR, etc) in the faculty-clinic, you will get to operate on that case regardless of the week. While on call, you’re responsible for overseeing admitted patients and consults, while operating any emergency cases that come in overnight. No chief residents struggle to reach any of their minimums for graduation.
Strengths of the program:
- Anesthesia experience - while on your off-service rotation, you are treated as an independent anesthesia resident. You rotate through Cincinnati Children’s (which is #1 ranked Children's Hospital nationally) where you are treated as a second year anesthesia resident. You mostly start doing your own sedations as a second year. By the end of your residency, you can easily reach 1,000+ anesthesia cases (ambulatory sedations and OR general anesthesia cases) depending on how hungry you are. One of our current outgoing chiefs logged over 1,200 during his 4 years. While doing sedations, you are doing the procedure and the anesthesia alone, just as you would in private practice. We do 26-28 IVS/GA cases at the resident clinic daily and 4-5 IVS/GA cases at the faculty clinic daily. Attendings are not in the room during sedations. The resident has full autonomy over type of sedation desired. You have propofol, ketamine, fentanyl, versed (and precedex at the MAB) at your disposal as well as any ancillary medication you want. We have propofol pumps and an anesthesia ventilator (sevo) in our clinic. You will be comfortable tailoring your sedation techniques to the medically complex: opioid use disorder on opioid blocking agents, obese (which is becoming increasingly important), psychiatric pt, pediatric pt, renal failure pt, liver failure pt, cardiac pt, etc.
- Orthognathic/TMJ - Our faculty has a well-established high volume orthognathic practice. During the busy months of the year, we have 4-5 orthognathic cases a week, and usually have 1-2 orthognathic cases during the slower months of the year. There is no shortage of orthognathic cases since none of the Cincinnati community OMS do orthognathic surgery. We get cases from all over Ohio since both Case and Ohio State do not take Medicaid insurance. Additionally, three of our 5 faculty do orthognathic surgery. The resident is involved in every aspect of the orthognathic surgery from initial consult/eval, VSP meeting, surgery and follow-ups. All of our orthogs are VSP. We do several temporomandibular joint replacement surgeries a year, as well as various TMJ surgeries. Four of our faculty perform TMJ surgery. Keep in mind, we do not see and manage many patients with chronic TMJ pain in our clinic. We’re lucky to have Dr. Robins here, who is an orofacial pain specialist and manages the TMJ patients in his private clinic. Once a patient fails conservative therapy, he then refers them to us for surgical treatment.
- Dentoalveolar - you’ll become an expert tooth shucker, edentulate way too many people, and be proud of it. No matter what size, shape, and place, you’ll be able to do it well. You'll be doing full bony thirds in under 15 minutes by chief year.
- Trauma - since we are the primary facial-trauma team for all of the secondary/tertiary hospitals in the tri-state area, we get a lot of mandibular fractures and a decent amount of midfacial trauma. We are on call at these hospitals 365 (every day), but we don't have to physically travel to the hospital we just take the call and have the pt follow-up in clinic for evaluation. So we get good trauma numbers with less call burden. We also split facial trauma call at UCMC (the only level I trauma center in the region) with plastics and ENT every third day. You will get your fair share of lacs, GSWs, avulsions, dog bites, etc as an intern. You will feel more than comfortable managing the OMS trauma patient.
- Off-service experience - there is a heavy focus on medicine/anesthesia in this program. It starts in our first year with Dr. Harper, who runs an extraordinary weekly anesthesia/medicine course for the residents. Since you have a near full year on service as an intern you are able to essentially get a condensed/high yield med school education from Dr. Harper- system by system (cardiac, pulmonary, renal, etc) week by week. Then when you go off-service you are knowledgeable and gain the respect of the off service attendings. While off-service, you have the same responsibilities as any resident on that service (Medicine, Anesthesia, General Surgery). Thus, you have a lot of one-on-one time with Attendings, and you get great clinical experiences. But that also comes with increased responsibilities and more intensive rotations. For a non-MD based program, you will receive a great medical education, one that is clinical and focused on relevant knowledge.
- Pediatrics - You’ll get really comfortable treating kids. You’ll get exposure to office based pediatric anesthesia (sevo breath downs) at our faculty clinic (this will transition to CCHMC clinic this year). We also serve on the CCHMC Craniofacial Anomolies Team in the role of cleft bone grafting and cleft orthognathic surgery. Around 10-20% of our orthognathic cases are at CCHMC on cleft patients. In addition to orthognathic and cleft care, we operate at CCHMC weekly for dentoalveolar, pediatric mandible trauma and pathology surgeries.
We do a rotation in Bangalore, India, where we get heavy exposure to one of the busiest cleft lip/palate surgery units in the world. You will do a few primary lips/palates and cleft rhinoplasties when on your Plastic surgery rotation, but the majority of these surgeries will be done in India. Obviously, you won’t finish the program being able to do primary cleft lip/palate surgery, but you’ll get a great exposure that would prepare you for a fellowship if desired.
- Culture - for the most part, we enjoy going to work. We have a non-malignant environment. Our attendings are very approachable and friendly. The residents take care of each other and help each other out. We encourage that residents have a life outside the program, and many of our residents have families. We’re a diverse group from many different backgrounds and parts of the country/world. It’s a great environment to be a part of and work in. The attendings usually split the advanced procedures with the chief resident early in the year (meaning orthognathic, tmj, reconstructive etc), then after a few months they let the resident do the whole thing depending on the resident’s proficiency level and the type of case. It would be untrue to say that our attendings aren’t involved with the surgery from the treatment planning to the execution of it. You will never be in a situation as the chief resident where you do not take the lead on the case. Our attendings do like to teach while doing the surgery with you and show you the pearls as you are the main surgeon cutting.
- Job opportunities - Our graduating residents are well-prepared to pursue private practice or academics. 3rd and 4th year residents routinely do 10-12 sedations in a day. You will be fast and competent to step into a busy private practice schedule or if you pursue academics you will be very comfortable with orthognathic, trauma and benign pathology. In general, our alumni are located throughout the country (East to West coast) and are not restricted to the Cincinnati/Kentucky area. Several of our recent graduates have pursued academics without issues, although most tend to work in private practice. Dr. Krishnan is very active and well-regarded in the field and prioritizes his residents succeeding after they graduate. Dr. Morrison is also very well connected as he is very active in OMS legislation serving as AAOMS Vice President and President. If you want to do a fellowship you will have no problem getting into a craniofacial, cosmetic or general OMS fellowship. (although you will be comfortable with traditional scope OMS and won't need to do a fellowship for it).
- Geographic advantage - Our program primarily operates out of five locations: Holmes Hospital, Medical Arts Building, the VA, UC main hospital and Children’s Hospital. All five of these locations are walking distance from each other and our parking garage. A typical day consists of rounding on inpatients at UC main hospital, attending lecture/OMS Grand Rounds in Holmes Hospital, then either remaining at the Holmes Hospital resident clinic/OR or walking over to one of the other locations if you are rotating there. The Holmes Hospital OR’s are on the same floor as our resident clinic less than 40 steps away. This allows residents quick access between the OR and resident clinic. If an OR case gets delayed, the chief can easily head over to the resident clinic to finish up a note, eat lunch or even do a quick sedation. This also makes it incredibly convenient for interns to pre-op OR patients then jump back over to seeing consults or doing locals in the resident clinic. Overall, this makes for a highly efficient work day. We should mention that on some Wednesday’s we operate out of West Chester Hospital which is 20 miles north of the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. Typically only a chief and junior level will drive up there for the case. We do not round at West Chester, and it is the only location we drive to. Finally, we have blocked OR time 4 full days a week at Holmes Hospital, 2 full days a week at CCHMC, 1 (sometimes 2) full day a week at UCMC, 1 full day a week at WCH, 1 day a month at VA. Since we have ample block time we rarely have to operate late into the night as "add on" or "catch-up" cases. The only cases we have to book as add-on are emergent trauma cases and neck infections, the rest can be scheduled in block time.
Weaknesses of the program:
- Implantology/prosthodontics - We are not affiliated with a dental school, which actually has many advantages on its own, but it does mean our implant case load is not as high as we would like it to be. Our implant cases come from either the faculty clinic (private practice dentists) or the VA. In the past, we have only been in the VA on a weekly basis and go to the operating room there once a month. However, we recently hired an attending who spent many years in the Navy who is planning on expanding our VA program, and we are currently moving to 2 days per week at the VA clinic. Also, Dr. Kim (prosth) has started working at the VA 1 day/week and has started working up more full arch implant cases. Additionally, now that we have 5 full time attendings accepting implant referrals and a full time prosthodontist at the faculty practice we have increased implant numbers there. We do more implants at our faculty practice than we do at the VA now. We also recently received a Nobel grant of 40 free implants per year to give to our patients. The chiefs that graduated last year doubled their chiefs implant numbers, so this is quickly becoming less of an issue. In reality we probably do an average amount of implants for an OMFS program, but since we do far above average numbers in all of the other categories we don't feel as comfortable with implants as say orthognathic, trauma, dentoalveolar and anesthesia.
- Cancer - this could be an advantage or a weakness, depending on what you’re looking for in a program. We do not have a head and neck cancer surgeon on our team, nor do we plan on hiring one. We deal with a lot of benign pathology that require non-microvascular reconstruction. We’ll deal with dysplasia or pre-cancerous lesions but not actual malignancies, which typically get referred to ENT, who have a strong head/neck program here at Cincinnati. If you’re looking to get heavy head and neck oncology/microvascular exposure, you won’t get it here. We rotate with the ENT head and neck cancer team for a month during 3rd year, which is as much exposure as you’ll have to head/neck cancer. We do enough surgical airways/trachs through our trauma cases and off-service rotations that you’ll be able to do it when you finish. Keep in mind though that you won’t feel comfortable doing ablative/microvascular surgery coming out of most programs without a fellowship. Regardless, if you want to practice head and neck ablative/microvascular surgery you should try to pursue a program that does that routinely.
- Cosmetics - we do not have a cosmetic trained surgeon on our team. We do the occasional scar revision, otoplasty, post-trauma reconstruction/revision. You will do cosmetics on plastics and in India. But in general, we do not do cosmetic facelifts/neck lifts, blepharoplasties, etc. Dr Phero hosts Friday-afternoon free botox/filler sessions for the residents to get more experience. The program does send its residents to cosmetic courses to become familiar with these procedures. Additionally, because of our strong orthognathic training, we feel comfortable with bony reconstructions. You will get enough exposure to cosmetics to know if you would like to do it after residency. Major facial cosmetics (rhino/facelifts) is another area of OMS that you will need to complete a fellowship to seriously/competitively practice (especially if you want to market yourself as a DDS/DMD).
- Craniofacial - we do not have a craniofacial trained surgeon on the team. The plastics-craniofacial team does the primary cleft lip/palate cases here at Cincinnati Children’s, and we rotate with them for a month. Additionally, we spend a month in India with one of the busiest cleft palate/lip teams in the world. We do several cases during the year for alveolar cleft repairs and orthognathic for cleft lip/palate patients. As mentioned earlier, our cleft presence is expanding, but probably not to a degree that you would be comfortable doing primary CL&P. Again, fellowship.
- Top heavy - based on structural design, you will - for the most part - not do major OR surgeries until your chief year (occasionally 3rd year). By the end of your third year, you will become more involved with advanced cases (trauma, orthognathic, TMJ reconstruction, etc) but not to any significant level. The true learning happens in the last year of the program, which can be frustrating for a junior level resident. Our program is forced to operate this way because our clinic schedule is so demanding. Between the Holmes Hospital Clinic and the faculty practice we have around 27,000-30,000 outpatient visits yearly. Clinic visits are the life source for OMS programs- if you don't have a busy clinic schedule then unfortunately you probably don't have many clinic procedures or OR procedures. We do 30+ sedations daily between our clinics, so we need third year residents (anesthesia capable residents) in clinic more than the OR. Due to multiple OR's running on the same day (Wednesday's and Thursday's, occasionally Tuesday's) there are some days we only have 2 residents to tackle all 26 sedations at Holmes Clinic. For this reason interns go to the OR to assist the chief. However, this also means that you get the best possible experience as a chief resident. For example, during their first week, one of our new chief residents cut four orthognathic cases, including double tmj replacement surgeries along with the regular trauma and benign path cases. You will be a proficient surgeon by the end of the four years, even though you might not feel that way three years into the program. It’s just not how the program is designed.
Call Schedule:
Interns take primary call while on service, which typically works out to about 6-9 total days per month (including 2-3 face calls) depending on how many residents are on service that month. You’ll work hard as an intern, but our structure is set up in a way that you won’t get beat down your first year. You typically will get 1-2 full weekends off call (Friday-Sunday) per month, again depending on how many residents are on service that month. Call is
home call, which is really nice. Although you’ll have the occasional tooth-call night that you spend in the call room because every Cincinnatian decides to have a large submandibular abscess all at the same time.
We split Facial Trauma call with ENT and Plastics, so it works out to about 9-10 days per month as a service (2-3 face/trauma calls per intern per month). Per institutional/ACS requirements, trauma call is ‘technically’ in-house call. We’re the primary consultant for facial trauma for many of the surrounding level 2 and regional hospitals. This works out nicely for the program because it adds a tremendous amount of trauma cases to our caseload (and works out nicely for the resident on call because we don’t travel to any of these hospitals, just take the page and have them follow-up in the clinic- you will find out that most facial trauma does not require immediate intervention). As a result, we actually end up doing far more trauma cases than ENT and Plastics here.
Research:
Each resident is required to be involved in some sort of research project. We have a full time research coordinator who helps the residents with their research projects. We have over a dozen research projects usually happening at once, and our young attendings are very motivated to get published. Residents can get involved as much or as little as they want. Research is definitely not a centerpiece of the program, and we do not publish as much as other institutions, but it is definitely not absent. Our research program continues to grow, and we tend to publish several articles yearly.
Didactics:
We meet daily for didactic sessions. On Mondays, we have pathology case review with Dr. Stastny. On Tuesdays, we have mock oral board review with Dr. Krishnan. On Wednesdays, we have OMS Grand Rounds, where we discuss our cases for the week/past week and have special lectures from either guest speakers/attendings/residents. On Thursdays, we have anesthesia/medicine/anatomy course with Dr. Harper. On Fridays, we have resident led discussions. We have monthly journal club and orthographic conference. Dr. Krishnan routinely sends residents to conferences nationwide all expenses paid. We meet with Dr. Damm, a world-renowned and famous oral pathologist, four times a year to learn oral pathology. There is definitely an emphasis on board preparation, and all of our graduates become accredited/pass boards. Didactics is heavy in our program and can sometimes be a bit much, but it does not take away from clinic time. Dr. Harper assigns weekly articles/chapters that mimic *relevant* medical school curriculum thus he is an invaluable adjunct faculty for a 4 year certificate OMS program to have. We have a 15-year running streak of 100% board certification amongst our alumni.
Living in Cincinnati:
In general, Cincinnati is a nice place to live. It is a really affordable city to live in, especially if you’re coming with a family. Not much traffic except during rush hour crossing the bridge to Kentucky on a Friday. There are many living options ranging from downtown to the suburbs. Most residents choose to live outside of downtown, about 10-15 minutes from the hospital. This gets you more space for your money and usually in a nicer/quieter neighborhood. Although a few residents/attendings live in the downtown or Over-The-Rhine areas as well. Some of us live across the river in Northern Kentucky, which has several great walkable communities and is super close to downtown and to the hospital.
There are plenty of parks and places to hike throughout the city, and many of the residents spend time out on the Little Miami River and bike trail during their free time. Red River Gorge or Hocking Hills is a short drive away and a great place to spend the weekend if you’re into rock climbing, hiking, camping etc. If you’re not as much into outdoor activities, our geographical location makes it easy to get to Chicago, Indy, Louisville, Lexington, Columbus, or even Nashville, the Great Lakes, Asheville etc for the weekend. The restaurant scene is actually pretty decent, although the New Yorkers in our program will tell you the pizza here sucks, and the brewery scene is great as well. It’s definitely not NYC/Chicago/Boston as far as restaurants and amenities go, but it’s not a bad city overall, and there is always plenty to do. Keep in mind that as a resident, your free time is limited, so you don’t need an infinite number of dining and nightlife options within a block from your house. That being said, Cincinnati still has enough action to keep you busy when you have a break from resident life.
The airport isn’t a major flight hub like Dallas/Atlanta/Chicago, but it has direct flights to most major cities, and connection flights to most other cities via Chicago/Atlanta, including international flights. The airport is approximately 15-20 minutes from downtown Cincinnati.
Oh, and Cincinnati sports teams are making history and are turning Cincinnati into a sports town.
Burrow took the Bengal's to the Super Bowl in 2021 and ended one game short of the Super Bowl in 2022.
The Red's are currently leading the National League Central and on a 12 game win streak (longest since 1957)
FC Cincinnati's TQL Stadium is a brand new stadium built in 2021 and hosts many international matches including the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification match USA vs Mexico 2021 and USA vs Morocco in 2022. The Gold Cup Quarterfinals will be hosted here in 2023. Also, FC Cincinnati is currently ranked 1st in the MLS Eastern Conference and will host Inter Miami and Messi in the US Open Cup semifinals.
Vacation:
Per hospital policy, each resident is required to take 4 weeks of vacation per year. There is not a 'don’t ask, don’t tell' policy here, everyone must take their full vacation. We typically are able to get each weekend on either side of our week off, so this works out to 9 days off for each of our vacation weeks.
The rundown on our program:
- Strong broad scope core OMS program (orthognathic, TMJ, trauma, benign path, dentoalveolar)
- Strong anesthesia experience
- Strong off-service experience
- 4 full days OR block time Holmes Hospital, 2 full days CCHMC, 1 full day WCH, 1 full day UCMC, 1 day a month VA
- Good, non-malignant, diverse, and friendly culture amongst attendings/residents
- Chief residents aren’t holding sticks, they’re cutting, but the attendings are always available to teach
- Call schedule is not that bad, work vs life balance achievable (but wouldn’t consider it a country-club program)
- Main facilities are walking distance, so there’s not much driving
- Elective Craniofacial India Rotation (Bangalore) - all expenses paid. Great surgical and cultural experience.
- No cancer/little cosmetics
- No shortage of attendings (five full-time currently)
- We can do better with implants, our PD knows this is a desire of the residents and this is one of his main priorities. I suspect this won't be an issue in 1-2 years
- A lot of didactics and the department sends residents to conferences all over the country all year long, expenses paid
- MD option if desired
- Cincinnati is a cheap/easy/nice place to live with little traffic and surprisingly good pro-sports teams