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UMKC Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery – Kansas City, MO (2026 Update)
Hi everyone,
We haven't had a recent post about the program, so we wanted to put up an update for applicants.
UMKC has both a six-year MD track (2 residents per year, MD through UMKC School of Medicine) and a four-year track (1 resident per year). We also have 4 non-categorical interns every year, 2 at the hospital and 2 at the UMKC School of Dentistry. The biggest thing to know about us is that we cover facial trauma at three Level 1 trauma centers every day of the year. We do not split call with ENT or plastics. Residents do the majority of the operating here and attendings are scrubbed to teach. We are also a very close group and spend a lot of time together outside the hospital (more on that below). Overall, residents graduate from here ready to succeed in private practice, academics, or fellowship.
Basic Structure/Schedule (6-year):
PGY1: 6 months OMS, 5 months anesthesia, and 1 month of dedicated Step 1 study time (you still take call during that month). You need to pass Step 1 before starting med school. Interns take primary call at University Health and Children's Mercy Hospital.
Anesthesia is 5 months on adult patients and is one of the better parts of intern year. You get autonomy very early, usually within the first week. You are establishing the airway and managing the anesthetic in your own room and doing multiple cases per day. You also do sedations in GI and other clinics, which is very similar to what we do on service. Most of us finish with around 250-350 general anesthesia cases during these 5 months and feel very comfortable with general anesthesia by the end.
PGY2-3: Medical school at UMKC for 24 months. Internal medicine 4 months, general surgery 2, OB/GYN 2, peds 2, EM 1, ICU 1, psych 1, humanities 1, and 8 months of electives. We pay in-state tuition, which is about $47k per year. There is no resident salary during these two years but moonlighting is available.
PGY4: 6 months general surgery, 4 months at the UMKC dental school (dentoalveolar, implants, sedations), and 2 months on service at the main hospital.
PGY5: 8 months on service as a senior and 4 months with Dr. Prstojevich. On his rotation you are doing many sedations per day along with bone grafting, implants, and extractions, and you operate with him at Saint Luke's.
PGY6: 4 months as chief at University Health/Saint Luke's/Children's Mercy where you are the lead surgeon on every case. 3 months at Children's Mercy (1 month peds anesthesia, 2 months craniofacial with plastics) 1 month back on OMS service after finishing CMH rotation. 4 months as the Saint Luke's/side chief covering the service and first assisting the primary chief.
Total OMS time is 37 months.
4-year track:
Same clinical progression with 33 months on OMS. Instead of med school, PGY-2 has 6 months of general surgery, a medicine block for 4 months (cardiology, pulmonology, ID, MICU) and 2 months on OMS service. The anesthesia rotation is the same. PGY-3 has the 4 months with Dr. Prstojevich and 4 months at the dental school. Chief year is the same as the six-year track.
Sites:
University Health (Truman): Home base and where most on-service time is spent. Level 1 trauma center and the safety-net hospital for Kansas City. Trauma, infections, pathology, orthognathics, TMJ, and our main clinic are all here. In clinic you will get very good at taking out wisdom teeth, doing extractions and benign pathology. You run your own sedations with the attending in the room, but they let you run the show. We mainly operate here. We have block time 3 days of the week but we operate Monday through Friday. We also do have block time at the surgery center above our clinic once a week, which is separate from the main hospital, but can operate there other days if needed.
Children's Mercy: Level 1 peds trauma. We have block OR time monthly and otherwise cover call and operate on whatever comes in. Chiefs spend 4 months here. During the 2 months of craniofacial with plastic surgery, we cut orthognathics and other craniofacial cases as chiefs.
Saint Luke's: Level 1 trauma center where our private practice attendings bring their orthognathic, TMJ, reconstruction, and dentoalveolar cases. Seniors take call here all year.
UMKC School of Dentistry: Dentoalveolar, sedations, and implants.
OR Scope:
Trauma: We do lots of trauma. Three Level 1 hospitals with no ENT/plastics coverage for the face. You will be very well-versed in all kinds of trauma cases/procedures.
Infections: Superficial, deep spaces abscesses, peritonsilar abscesses, skin abscesses. You named it, we drained it.
TMJ: We see lots of TMJ disorder patients. Mainly arthrocentesis, arthroscopy, and total joint replacements, with some other open arthroplasty procedures.
Orthognathic: Moderate volume. Cases tend to come in waves depending on the season. Most chiefs graduate with at least 50-75 jaws between UH, Saint Luke's, and the craniofacial rotation at CMH.
Pathology/Reconstruction: We only do benign pathology, but there is a lot of it, along with the reconstruction (bone grafting, soft tissue grafting, recon of path defects, cutaneous defect repair). We also do submandibular and sublingual glands. We do not do malignant pathology, free flaps, or parotids.
Nerve repair/grafting: We do nerve repair and grafting, which is nice exposure that many programs don't have.
Cosmetics: Facial cosmetic surgery and injectables with our private practice attendings.
Dentoalveolar/Implants/Sedation: We do sedations at University Health, the dental school, and on the Prstojevich rotation. The resident runs the sedation and we use standard medications, including Precedex. You will pass the sedation requirement by the beginning of third year and feel very comfortable with IV sedation. Right now, residents place about 50-75 implants. Residents do many sinus lifts and bone grafting at Prstojevich'srotation and the dental school. You will also get some exposure to all on X and remote anchorage implants. We are working on adding another rotation to increase resident exposure and experience to implants.
Call:
OMS covers trauma, infections, pathology, and other consults on the face at all three hospitals 365 days of the year. Interns take primary call at University Health and Children's Mercy, which works out to about 5-8 calls a month depending on how many residents are on service. Seniors cover Saint Luke's Hospital call for one full week each month and are the back up for the interns whenever they need help. Call is busy, we won't pretend otherwise, but it is a big reason people here get comfortable fast.
Didactics:
Wednesday is our main didactic day. Each month we have a different topic/theme for lectures. Lectures are case-based with reading ahead of time and geared toward boards. Wednesdays also include M&M, grand rounds, and CPC with oral pathology, and we finish with a case review led by faculty. Friday mornings we have case conference where we go over the upcoming week'sOR cases, run by one of the chiefs or seniors. Journal club is once a month and we typically go with a sponsor/vendor to a restaurant to enjoy good food and discuss literature. There is also time built in for CE courses, meetings, and away rotations if one desires to go to any.
Faculty:
• Dr. Brett Ferguson, Chair: TMJ, orthognathic, trauma, pathology, dentoalveolar
• Dr. Adam Flack, Program Director: trauma, pathology, TMJ, orthognathic, dentoalveolar
• Dr. Juan Kim: orthognathic, TMJ, trauma, pathology, nerve repair, dentoalveolar
• Dr. Thaer Daifallah: orthognathic, TMJ, pathology and reconstruction, trauma, dentoalveolar
• Dr. Robert Kern: trauma, pathology, dentoalveolar
• Dr. Robert McAmis: dentoalveolar
• Dr. Solon Kao, Chair of Oral Surgery at the dental school: dentoalveolar
• Dr. Steven Prstojevich, Chair at Saint Luke's: private practice (senior rotation is with him), cosmetic trained, trauma, takes call with us at SLH
• Dr. Matthew Hlavacek: private practice, also does cosmetics, takes call at SLH
• Dr. Sterling Card: private practice, takes call at SLH
• Dr. Patrick Moore: private practice, takes call at UH
Resident Life:
This is one of the best parts of the program. We all get along and work well together. We also hang out outside of the hospital at least one time per week. Most weeks there is something going on, whether it's dinner, drinks in the Crossroads or Westport, watching the Chiefs, or journal club (which is basically a program dinner). The attendings are very friendly and approachable too and love to teach as well as treat everyone as an equal. There is nothing malignant about this place, and if you extern here you will see it quickly.
Kansas City:
KC is a great place to live as a resident. Cost of living is low, there is basically no traffic, and there is plenty to do. Chiefs, Royals, Sporting KC, and the KC Current. The BBQ is as good as advertised (Joe's, Q39, Arthur Bryant's). Westport, the Crossroads, the Plaza, Power & Light, and River Market all have good restaurants and bars.
After Graduation:
Graduating from UMKC, you will be comfortable and prepared to succeed in private practice or academics. You get good surgical exposure and a lot of hands-on operative experience across a broad scope: trauma, TMJ, orthognathics, benign pathology and reconstruction, dentoalveolar, implants, and anesthesia. Between the county hospital, the children's hospital, and the private practice rotation, you see how OMS is practiced in very different settings, so you have a good idea of what you want your own practice to look like by the time you finish. Most of our graduates go into private practice, but residents who want to pursue fellowship or academics are well supported by the faculty.
Strengths:
• Program culture, friendliness, and resident life
• Broad scope and operative experience. You will graduate comfortable going into private practice or academics
• Residents operate, and chiefs are lead surgeon on every case. If there is a case you want to operate on, if you work it up and present to an attending, they will cut it (within reason) – so essentially, if you want to operate, you can
• All facial trauma and call at three Level 1 centers with no splitting with ENT/plastics
• Lots of TMJ including total joints
• Strong anesthesia experience and resident-run sedations at three sites
• Private practice rotation in addition to a busy county hospital
• Craniofacial and peds anesthesia time at Children's Mercy
Weaknesses:
• Implant numbers are lower than some programs (we are working on this)
• No salary during the two years of med school
• Call is busy
Externships:
1-2 week externships are available with us. You will be in the OR and clinic during your time here. Contact Anita Haney, our program coordinator, at [email protected]. We'd love to have you.
Application:
Applications are through PASS and due October 1. Interview invites go out in late October and early November and interviews are likely to be in early December with multiple dates. Minimum CBSE is 62 for the six-year track and 58 for the four-year track.
Website: Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
Hi everyone,
We haven't had a recent post about the program, so we wanted to put up an update for applicants.
UMKC has both a six-year MD track (2 residents per year, MD through UMKC School of Medicine) and a four-year track (1 resident per year). We also have 4 non-categorical interns every year, 2 at the hospital and 2 at the UMKC School of Dentistry. The biggest thing to know about us is that we cover facial trauma at three Level 1 trauma centers every day of the year. We do not split call with ENT or plastics. Residents do the majority of the operating here and attendings are scrubbed to teach. We are also a very close group and spend a lot of time together outside the hospital (more on that below). Overall, residents graduate from here ready to succeed in private practice, academics, or fellowship.
Basic Structure/Schedule (6-year):
PGY1: 6 months OMS, 5 months anesthesia, and 1 month of dedicated Step 1 study time (you still take call during that month). You need to pass Step 1 before starting med school. Interns take primary call at University Health and Children's Mercy Hospital.
Anesthesia is 5 months on adult patients and is one of the better parts of intern year. You get autonomy very early, usually within the first week. You are establishing the airway and managing the anesthetic in your own room and doing multiple cases per day. You also do sedations in GI and other clinics, which is very similar to what we do on service. Most of us finish with around 250-350 general anesthesia cases during these 5 months and feel very comfortable with general anesthesia by the end.
PGY2-3: Medical school at UMKC for 24 months. Internal medicine 4 months, general surgery 2, OB/GYN 2, peds 2, EM 1, ICU 1, psych 1, humanities 1, and 8 months of electives. We pay in-state tuition, which is about $47k per year. There is no resident salary during these two years but moonlighting is available.
PGY4: 6 months general surgery, 4 months at the UMKC dental school (dentoalveolar, implants, sedations), and 2 months on service at the main hospital.
PGY5: 8 months on service as a senior and 4 months with Dr. Prstojevich. On his rotation you are doing many sedations per day along with bone grafting, implants, and extractions, and you operate with him at Saint Luke's.
PGY6: 4 months as chief at University Health/Saint Luke's/Children's Mercy where you are the lead surgeon on every case. 3 months at Children's Mercy (1 month peds anesthesia, 2 months craniofacial with plastics) 1 month back on OMS service after finishing CMH rotation. 4 months as the Saint Luke's/side chief covering the service and first assisting the primary chief.
Total OMS time is 37 months.
4-year track:
Same clinical progression with 33 months on OMS. Instead of med school, PGY-2 has 6 months of general surgery, a medicine block for 4 months (cardiology, pulmonology, ID, MICU) and 2 months on OMS service. The anesthesia rotation is the same. PGY-3 has the 4 months with Dr. Prstojevich and 4 months at the dental school. Chief year is the same as the six-year track.
Sites:
University Health (Truman): Home base and where most on-service time is spent. Level 1 trauma center and the safety-net hospital for Kansas City. Trauma, infections, pathology, orthognathics, TMJ, and our main clinic are all here. In clinic you will get very good at taking out wisdom teeth, doing extractions and benign pathology. You run your own sedations with the attending in the room, but they let you run the show. We mainly operate here. We have block time 3 days of the week but we operate Monday through Friday. We also do have block time at the surgery center above our clinic once a week, which is separate from the main hospital, but can operate there other days if needed.
Children's Mercy: Level 1 peds trauma. We have block OR time monthly and otherwise cover call and operate on whatever comes in. Chiefs spend 4 months here. During the 2 months of craniofacial with plastic surgery, we cut orthognathics and other craniofacial cases as chiefs.
Saint Luke's: Level 1 trauma center where our private practice attendings bring their orthognathic, TMJ, reconstruction, and dentoalveolar cases. Seniors take call here all year.
UMKC School of Dentistry: Dentoalveolar, sedations, and implants.
OR Scope:
Trauma: We do lots of trauma. Three Level 1 hospitals with no ENT/plastics coverage for the face. You will be very well-versed in all kinds of trauma cases/procedures.
Infections: Superficial, deep spaces abscesses, peritonsilar abscesses, skin abscesses. You named it, we drained it.
TMJ: We see lots of TMJ disorder patients. Mainly arthrocentesis, arthroscopy, and total joint replacements, with some other open arthroplasty procedures.
Orthognathic: Moderate volume. Cases tend to come in waves depending on the season. Most chiefs graduate with at least 50-75 jaws between UH, Saint Luke's, and the craniofacial rotation at CMH.
Pathology/Reconstruction: We only do benign pathology, but there is a lot of it, along with the reconstruction (bone grafting, soft tissue grafting, recon of path defects, cutaneous defect repair). We also do submandibular and sublingual glands. We do not do malignant pathology, free flaps, or parotids.
Nerve repair/grafting: We do nerve repair and grafting, which is nice exposure that many programs don't have.
Cosmetics: Facial cosmetic surgery and injectables with our private practice attendings.
Dentoalveolar/Implants/Sedation: We do sedations at University Health, the dental school, and on the Prstojevich rotation. The resident runs the sedation and we use standard medications, including Precedex. You will pass the sedation requirement by the beginning of third year and feel very comfortable with IV sedation. Right now, residents place about 50-75 implants. Residents do many sinus lifts and bone grafting at Prstojevich'srotation and the dental school. You will also get some exposure to all on X and remote anchorage implants. We are working on adding another rotation to increase resident exposure and experience to implants.
Call:
OMS covers trauma, infections, pathology, and other consults on the face at all three hospitals 365 days of the year. Interns take primary call at University Health and Children's Mercy, which works out to about 5-8 calls a month depending on how many residents are on service. Seniors cover Saint Luke's Hospital call for one full week each month and are the back up for the interns whenever they need help. Call is busy, we won't pretend otherwise, but it is a big reason people here get comfortable fast.
Didactics:
Wednesday is our main didactic day. Each month we have a different topic/theme for lectures. Lectures are case-based with reading ahead of time and geared toward boards. Wednesdays also include M&M, grand rounds, and CPC with oral pathology, and we finish with a case review led by faculty. Friday mornings we have case conference where we go over the upcoming week'sOR cases, run by one of the chiefs or seniors. Journal club is once a month and we typically go with a sponsor/vendor to a restaurant to enjoy good food and discuss literature. There is also time built in for CE courses, meetings, and away rotations if one desires to go to any.
Faculty:
• Dr. Brett Ferguson, Chair: TMJ, orthognathic, trauma, pathology, dentoalveolar
• Dr. Adam Flack, Program Director: trauma, pathology, TMJ, orthognathic, dentoalveolar
• Dr. Juan Kim: orthognathic, TMJ, trauma, pathology, nerve repair, dentoalveolar
• Dr. Thaer Daifallah: orthognathic, TMJ, pathology and reconstruction, trauma, dentoalveolar
• Dr. Robert Kern: trauma, pathology, dentoalveolar
• Dr. Robert McAmis: dentoalveolar
• Dr. Solon Kao, Chair of Oral Surgery at the dental school: dentoalveolar
• Dr. Steven Prstojevich, Chair at Saint Luke's: private practice (senior rotation is with him), cosmetic trained, trauma, takes call with us at SLH
• Dr. Matthew Hlavacek: private practice, also does cosmetics, takes call at SLH
• Dr. Sterling Card: private practice, takes call at SLH
• Dr. Patrick Moore: private practice, takes call at UH
Resident Life:
This is one of the best parts of the program. We all get along and work well together. We also hang out outside of the hospital at least one time per week. Most weeks there is something going on, whether it's dinner, drinks in the Crossroads or Westport, watching the Chiefs, or journal club (which is basically a program dinner). The attendings are very friendly and approachable too and love to teach as well as treat everyone as an equal. There is nothing malignant about this place, and if you extern here you will see it quickly.
Kansas City:
KC is a great place to live as a resident. Cost of living is low, there is basically no traffic, and there is plenty to do. Chiefs, Royals, Sporting KC, and the KC Current. The BBQ is as good as advertised (Joe's, Q39, Arthur Bryant's). Westport, the Crossroads, the Plaza, Power & Light, and River Market all have good restaurants and bars.
After Graduation:
Graduating from UMKC, you will be comfortable and prepared to succeed in private practice or academics. You get good surgical exposure and a lot of hands-on operative experience across a broad scope: trauma, TMJ, orthognathics, benign pathology and reconstruction, dentoalveolar, implants, and anesthesia. Between the county hospital, the children's hospital, and the private practice rotation, you see how OMS is practiced in very different settings, so you have a good idea of what you want your own practice to look like by the time you finish. Most of our graduates go into private practice, but residents who want to pursue fellowship or academics are well supported by the faculty.
Strengths:
• Program culture, friendliness, and resident life
• Broad scope and operative experience. You will graduate comfortable going into private practice or academics
• Residents operate, and chiefs are lead surgeon on every case. If there is a case you want to operate on, if you work it up and present to an attending, they will cut it (within reason) – so essentially, if you want to operate, you can
• All facial trauma and call at three Level 1 centers with no splitting with ENT/plastics
• Lots of TMJ including total joints
• Strong anesthesia experience and resident-run sedations at three sites
• Private practice rotation in addition to a busy county hospital
• Craniofacial and peds anesthesia time at Children's Mercy
Weaknesses:
• Implant numbers are lower than some programs (we are working on this)
• No salary during the two years of med school
• Call is busy
Externships:
1-2 week externships are available with us. You will be in the OR and clinic during your time here. Contact Anita Haney, our program coordinator, at [email protected]. We'd love to have you.
Application:
Applications are through PASS and due October 1. Interview invites go out in late October and early November and interviews are likely to be in early December with multiple dates. Minimum CBSE is 62 for the six-year track and 58 for the four-year track.
Website: Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
