Plastics vs ENT

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

booswim542

Walkin' on Sunshine
10+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Jun 5, 2006
Messages
430
Reaction score
1
Hey all -
There have not been any recent threads regarding this decision, and I wanted some fresh thoughts. I rotated through plastics at my program during 3rd year and LOVED it. It changed my mind from medicine to surgery. I wasn't sure how I felt about the cosmetic side of things, so looked into ENT. I liked ENT and chose to apply in that instead.

However, I am now back on plastics and I realized how much I like it. My goal in the end is to do craniofacial reconstruction stuff - hopefully peds. ENT or plastics as a path to get there?

Sell me...

Members don't see this ad.
 
Probably looking for advice from someone a little more senior than a fellow medical student but here goes. As I understand it, obtaining a craniofacial fellowship after ENT is fairly difficult. Several cleft surgeons who were initially ENT trained (Cutting, Papay) went on to do a formal plastic surgery residency and then a craniofacial fellowship. I believe ENT does palates in Iowa (this is where Cutting trained with Bardach), but this does not appear to be the norm. While this may not seem important to you now, I wonder about the job market for pediatric plastic surgery because these guys seem to go forever (Lehman, McCarthy, Mulliken are all over 70 years of age with no signs of slowing) and there are a limited number of cases. I know it does not speak to your original question but it weighs on my mind from time to time as I too faced the same decision concerning ENT and chose plastic surgery for the reasons mentioned above along with several others.

Just to be clear, if I were you I would throw down for plastics because it seems to be a little easier road for craniofacial surgery (if we are able match that is).
 
Last edited:
Members don't see this ad :)
As stated above I think you'll find that the currently accepted route to craniofacial fellowship training is through plastics, not ENT. Facial plastic surgeons (ENT's) do cosmetic surgery on the face and neck and plastic surgeons typically do craniofacial work like craniosynostosis and cleft palates. They'd also be the ones doing "face transplants" and do different aspects of head trauma than ENT. It may be possible to do a craniofacial fellowship out of ENT but I've only heard of this being after a full 3-year plastics residency (not an ENT facial plastics fellowship). As far as non-cosmetic plastic surgery is concerned, there may be some variety with what you can do as a facial plastics ENT, but as far as bones are concerned anything with teeth near it will be done by oral surgeons, and with complex reconstruction of the skull I think the consensus is that you'd want the microvascular experience that comes from PRS residency.
 
If you haven't already seen this, you may want to check out this thread by moravian, the ENT vs Plastics topic comes up a couple of times, and its a pretty solid thread for just basic insight and advice for plastics

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=432695

(post #13 and down address more of the ENT stuff)
 
Top