Possible to be a dmd/orthodontist/omfs all at once?

[K90]

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Just wondering. Would make the process a hell of a lot easier that is for sure. And no, I am not worried about the debt that acrues from undergraduate, dental, and post-graduate * 2.

 

[texas_dds]

you can do this, but the 2nd residency will questions your motives i would think. i know one person that went right into pedo after ortho. and another that quit OS and did ortho. you can pretty much do what you want i guess.

 

[PChemGrad]

i have met a dental student whos father went to dental school, then did a OMFS residency, but didnt like it so he went into ortho. the only thing is, you can only practice under one title, so he is a orthodontist now, and hasnt done oral surgery since he graduated from his program.

so it has been done. but why?

 

[K90]

i have met a dental student whos father went to dental school, then did a OMFS residency, but didnt like it so he went into ortho. the only thing is, you can only practice under one title, so he is a orthodontist now, and hasnt done oral surgery since he graduated from his program.

so it has been done. but why?

I'm just curious. Doesn't seem like there is an omfs in every county, so orthodontists in some circumstances send their patients God knows where to get a severely impacted tooth or two out. If you were both at once, that would obviously get things done much quicker because you wouldn't have to find an omfs, and then wait two or more weeks to get a single reply from the patient's insurance, right? It just would be a lot of schooling. In fact, I could probably be a neuro/plastic surgeon with completed residency before I finish both orthodontist and omfs and their residencies (makes more sense to be one, but I don't want to go through medical school and I hate almost everything about hospitals.)

 

[tinman831]

You're probably not going to be able to avoid hospitals if you're going the OMFS route. 😉

 

[armorshell]

IMO, the point of being a specialist is just that, to be a specialist in one area of dentistry. Trying to dual-specialize in these two specialties would dilute your focus in both, and cost you unnecessary money and time for negligible benefit to both you and your patients.

Doing a 4-6 year OMFS residency so you can (maybe) save a few patients a short drive doesn't seem to be too high of a priority.

 

[capisce?]

In the time you may think you'd save by doing it yourself, you could probably see 8 other ortho patients. Oral surgery is a heck of a lot of extra training to do to take out some impacted teeth!

 

[tinker bell]

When I interviewed at Case, one instructor had double specialty: OMFS & Pros.
He does a lot of stuff, surgery, implants, restorative. Basically, he told me he does comprehensive treatment and I personally think it's kind of cool.
However, think about the accumulate debt, I do not recommend it.

 

[HuyetKiem]

I'm just curious. Doesn't seem like there is an omfs in every county, so orthodontists in some circumstances send their patients God knows where to get a severely impacted tooth or two out. If you were both at once, that would obviously get things done much quicker because you wouldn't have to find an omfs, and then wait two or more weeks to get a single reply from the patient's insurance, right?

Why not practicing as a general dentist ? you can do both. Currently I'm seeing 3 ortho patients every hr every monday and taking out few impacted 3rd every week. Best of both world! 😀😀

 

[I'mFillingFine]

Just remain a general dentist and take tons of con-ed courses on ortho and OMFS and get the word out that you do both. The best way to do this is to use your time taking courses for what you want to do specifically. The whole reason general dentists can (legally) do any procedure but specialists have agreed to their specialty is to have a small set of people localized in one field. if you want to do both, go for it!

 

[DrJeff]

Technically there is no reason why you couldn't get dual specialization in OMFS and Ortho, you'd just need to prep yourself of between 6 to 9 years of residency post d-school.

The other thing with respect to the OMFS as a service for the ortho side of your patients, is that as a specialist, while they're your patients, there not "your" patients, but those of the GP base that referred them to you, and some GP's want to do the oral surgery for their patients, so they'd be the ones taking out those premolars, wizzies, primary teeth, or whatever you'd want out.

Sure, you as the OMFS would likely be doing the every now and then canine exposure, or the if your lucky a couple of times a year orthognathic case, but even in a busy ortho practice there's probably not as much oral surgery as you might think, and debateable about whether that amount of OMFS is "worth" the extra 4 to 6 years of your life that it will take to get that OMFS certificate.

The biggest dual specialty situation hands down is either the perio-prosth or OMFS-prosth, especially in todays implant world.

If you did decide to go Orhto/OMFS, the biggest boost to your practice that the OMFS side could bring, would be if you did a post OMFS fellowship in plastics, that way you could straighten little Johny's or little Sally's teeth and do a facelift or even some lipo on Johny or Sally's Mom! 😀 I'm actually being serious here, since one of the OMFS's I refer to did a 2 year plastics fellowship post residency and many times now I've had the mother(and one time even the father) of a teenager who I sent to that OMFS thank me for referring their kid to that OMFS since themselves they then chose to have a little cosmetic surgery done by the OMFS.

To really tie in the ortho/OMFS connection here, that OMFS's wife is actually an ortho

 

[12YearOldKid]

Sure you can do it. I personally plan on a career as dentist/astronaut/race car driver/veterinarian/bullrider.