UNC OMFS
Overview
I wrote an overview a few years ago but wanted to post the updates as everyone gets ready to send out their applications and set up externships for the year. Since I am a resident I tried my best to make all of the information as factual as possible and not my personal (positively biased) opinion. We are a 6 year MD track program that has 3 residents per year (plus one non categorical intern) with broad scope minus cancer.
Hospitals
UNC Hospital: The main benefit in our hospitals is that when you are on service you do not have to drive between multiple locations. All of our operations, whether they be in the children's or main hospital are essentially at the same place since the hospitals are connected and you can walk between them indoors. This includes the dental school. At UNC we have 5 block OR days (double OR day on Thursday, no planned cases on Friday). There is also a brand new $270 million dollar surgical tower being built on campus
UNC Dental School: Your procedures will include third molars, impacted canines, expose and bonds, and pretty much whatever the dental students/other specialties treatment plan. There is no shortage of extractions and we have dedicated implant days. You will work with ortho for TADs as well.
VA: We have complete control of the implants at the VA. The GPR residents do not place any, and I personally did around 100 during my 3 months there. I would say about 40% are overdenture implants with the rest being single unit/bridge supported. You will also do all of the grafting ranging from lateral window sinus lifts to ramus block grafts. You also have the opportunity to be exposed to cosmetics including blephs, botox, etc. Whether you are PGY1 or PGY3, if you are able to present a competent treatment plan with appropriate reasoning the attending will allow you to do the case.
Mission Hospital (Asheville): When you rotate here you take Q2 call with a military resident. There are no ENT/Plastics residents here so you gain a large exposure to full head and neck surgery since you cover all three services. This means you do all the trachs, neck dissections, etc in addition to all the facial trauma. It's a very popular travel destination and residents really enjoy spending time here
Elective: During your elective months you can set up to go to an outside OMFS program, fellowship, or subspecialty within UNC. Examples in the past few years include Microvascular at OHSU, oculoplastics within UNC, and arthroscopy with Dr. McCain. I did the Osteoscience rotation with Dr. Misch last year. Some residents even choose to do international electives. This can be very advantageous if you are considering a fellowship.
Schedule
PGY1: 7 months OMFS: 5 at UNC, 2 at VA, 5 months Anesthesia. As an intern at UNC you will spend half of your time in the resident clinic and half in the OR. You will be retracting for most of the orthognathic/TMJ cases but will get to do the OR cases you work up such as infections, path, and trauma. In the resident clinic you are allowed to do everything from impacted canines, thirds, benign pathology, implants. During your anesthesia rotation you are a CA-1 so you run the cases by yourself with an attending that typically covers 1-3 rooms. You can run sedations once you're done your anesthesia rotation so some interns will do this when they come back on service after anesthesia.
PGY2: 1 month of dedicated study time for USMLE, MS3 for remaining 11 months. You do not take any MS1 or MS2 classes.
PGY3: MS4 for first 6 months. MS4 is nice because it is almost all electives which most residents do on the head/neck service on ENT or plastics. 6 months OMFS from Jan-June: 4-5 months at UNC , 1-2 at VA. You will cover resident clinic, assist in the OR and begin to get bigger cases. You will also have extraction, trauma, and benign pathology cases in the OR. You will be able to run your own sedation extraction cases in clinic as well.
PGY4: 11 months of general surgery as a PGY-1 and 1 month OMFS elective
PGY5: 12 months OMFS: 4 months in Asheville, 7 at UNC, 1 month OMFS elective. You will gain more complex cases in the OR, complex implant cases with prosth, and be more involved in the cosmetic clinic.
PGY6: 12 months OMFS: all at UNC. Your time is split as the chief for one of the attendings. You will attend either the LSU or Denver course for board preparation. You will typically cut half the orthognathic cases with the attending cutting the other half. You will cut the entire case when it is unilateral (pathology, TMJ etc)
Total time (months): OMFS (38), Medical School (18), Anesthesia (5), General Surgery (11)
Scope
Orthognathic: Our program is notorious for being very heavy on orthognathic surgery. Dr. Turvey and Dr. Blakey are very well known in this field and will often do 3 in one day.
Pathology: Dr. Blakey has a very large patient pool of benign pathology. We regularly have multiple KCOT procedures in a week as well as reconstructions for ameloblastoma. We do not no cancer at UNC but you will be involved with resections while at Asheville.
TMJ: Dr. Matthews is our TMJ specialist. You will do plenty of cases including arthrocentesis, arthroscopy, and total joints
Trauma: Chapel Hill is not a dangerous area and we have a reputation for not being very trauma heavy because of this. At Asheville you take full face call q2 days. We take q3 month mandible call between plastics and ENT at UNC. Dr. Blakey has a contract with the corrections department so that all facial trauma from there is only seen by our service, which provides additional trauma cases without the extra burden on call.
Cosmetics: Dr. Fisher, who is fellowship trained, has a cosmetic clinic at UNC. Procedures range from blepharoplasties and face-lifts, to microneedling and botox.
Cleft/Craniofacial: We do both primary and secondary repairs. We also see a good amount of syndromic patients (hemifacial microsomia, Treacher Collins, etc) that require multiple procedures. Dr. Turvey, who is an expert in the field, and Dr. Daniel who is fellowship trained, do these cases with us
Implants: We have designated implant days and often use CBCT for treatment planning. You will place the majority of you implants as a PGY1 at the VA and increasing number at UNC as you progress through the program. We have conferences with the prosth department once a month
Cancer: We do not do any head and neck cancer at UNC but multiple residents who have an interest have spent their electives with ablation/microvascular fellowships.
Call
We take home call and there is a GPR that takes tooth/dentoalveolar fracture calls at UNC. When you are at the VA you take call there in addition to at UNC, but there tends to be very little call coming from the VA. First call is Q2-Q4 as a lower level (PGY1/3) depending on how many are on anesthesia. As an upper level (PGY5/6) call is Q4-Q5. Weekend call is grouped together so you are either on call Friday-Sunday or off the entire weekend. You do not take any call while you are on anesthesia or in medical school.
Didactics
1 hour every Wednesday morning that alternates between a resident run lecture on selected topics and mock boards held by faculty. Two hours every Friday by faculty both within our program and from outside departments. Examples include pathology by Dr. Blakey, Ophthalmology/Radiology by attendings from within UNC. There is also a guest speaker that comes in for a full day once a year. Last year’s was Dr. Tiwana. Grand rounds Friday after lecture to discuss cases for upcoming week along with resident run teaching during this time
Tuition/Salary
You will pay a prorated instate tuition for medical school for the 18 months you are a student. So one year is $35,000x1.5 for total of ~$52,000. You will be paid during all of your months on service including the 6 months during your PGY3 year that is split with medical school. Salary starts at $55,000 and increases a couple grand each PGY year
Additional Benefits
You are allowed to moonlight while in med school. How much you do is up to you but average pay is about $1000 for working 9a-4p. There is an office position set up. You are given a textbook allowance each year. All Step I/II/III related costs and study materials are covered. You are given $150/month for cafeteria food while at UNC and unlimited free cafeteria food while at Asheville
Research
UNC has many research opportunities with the most faculty currently having projects with residents. Not all residents choose to do research throughout the entire program and there is no formal requirement. That being said, the majority of residents present at AAOMS and have multiple publications. The program will pay for your transportation and hotel for any conferences that your research is accepted to present at with no cap on number of conferences
Chapel Hill
Residents live within the triangle area (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill). It is by no means a big city but there are plenty of things do/places to eat between the three areas. The beach is two hours east and the mountains are two hours west. Chapel Hill itself is a college town with bars and restaurants surrounding the campus. To give an idea of cost of living, a one-bedroom apartment in Chapel Hill costs $800/month. Living is significantly cheaper in Durham and is only 10-15 min drive from the hospital.
Residents
The residents get along well and meet up outside of work as a large group at least once a month for dinner/other outings. Due to us all having different schedules most will hangout outside of work in smaller groups. There are very few residents from the same dental school and are from all over the country. Approximately half are married. Most residents from our program go into private practice but in the last few years we have had residents match into Dr. Ruiz's cleft/craniofacial, Dr. Carlson's oncologic, and cosmetic fellowships.
Externship
You will spend most of your time observing in the OR but can help extract teeth in the urgent care clinic if you would like. You will also be allowed to round on the inpatients and take call with the residents, but this is entirely up to you. You will have to arrange for your own housing and transportation.
Overview
I wrote an overview a few years ago but wanted to post the updates as everyone gets ready to send out their applications and set up externships for the year. Since I am a resident I tried my best to make all of the information as factual as possible and not my personal (positively biased) opinion. We are a 6 year MD track program that has 3 residents per year (plus one non categorical intern) with broad scope minus cancer.
Hospitals
UNC Hospital: The main benefit in our hospitals is that when you are on service you do not have to drive between multiple locations. All of our operations, whether they be in the children's or main hospital are essentially at the same place since the hospitals are connected and you can walk between them indoors. This includes the dental school. At UNC we have 5 block OR days (double OR day on Thursday, no planned cases on Friday). There is also a brand new $270 million dollar surgical tower being built on campus
UNC Dental School: Your procedures will include third molars, impacted canines, expose and bonds, and pretty much whatever the dental students/other specialties treatment plan. There is no shortage of extractions and we have dedicated implant days. You will work with ortho for TADs as well.
VA: We have complete control of the implants at the VA. The GPR residents do not place any, and I personally did around 100 during my 3 months there. I would say about 40% are overdenture implants with the rest being single unit/bridge supported. You will also do all of the grafting ranging from lateral window sinus lifts to ramus block grafts. You also have the opportunity to be exposed to cosmetics including blephs, botox, etc. Whether you are PGY1 or PGY3, if you are able to present a competent treatment plan with appropriate reasoning the attending will allow you to do the case.
Mission Hospital (Asheville): When you rotate here you take Q2 call with a military resident. There are no ENT/Plastics residents here so you gain a large exposure to full head and neck surgery since you cover all three services. This means you do all the trachs, neck dissections, etc in addition to all the facial trauma. It's a very popular travel destination and residents really enjoy spending time here
Elective: During your elective months you can set up to go to an outside OMFS program, fellowship, or subspecialty within UNC. Examples in the past few years include Microvascular at OHSU, oculoplastics within UNC, and arthroscopy with Dr. McCain. I did the Osteoscience rotation with Dr. Misch last year. Some residents even choose to do international electives. This can be very advantageous if you are considering a fellowship.
Schedule
PGY1: 7 months OMFS: 5 at UNC, 2 at VA, 5 months Anesthesia. As an intern at UNC you will spend half of your time in the resident clinic and half in the OR. You will be retracting for most of the orthognathic/TMJ cases but will get to do the OR cases you work up such as infections, path, and trauma. In the resident clinic you are allowed to do everything from impacted canines, thirds, benign pathology, implants. During your anesthesia rotation you are a CA-1 so you run the cases by yourself with an attending that typically covers 1-3 rooms. You can run sedations once you're done your anesthesia rotation so some interns will do this when they come back on service after anesthesia.
PGY2: 1 month of dedicated study time for USMLE, MS3 for remaining 11 months. You do not take any MS1 or MS2 classes.
PGY3: MS4 for first 6 months. MS4 is nice because it is almost all electives which most residents do on the head/neck service on ENT or plastics. 6 months OMFS from Jan-June: 4-5 months at UNC , 1-2 at VA. You will cover resident clinic, assist in the OR and begin to get bigger cases. You will also have extraction, trauma, and benign pathology cases in the OR. You will be able to run your own sedation extraction cases in clinic as well.
PGY4: 11 months of general surgery as a PGY-1 and 1 month OMFS elective
PGY5: 12 months OMFS: 4 months in Asheville, 7 at UNC, 1 month OMFS elective. You will gain more complex cases in the OR, complex implant cases with prosth, and be more involved in the cosmetic clinic.
PGY6: 12 months OMFS: all at UNC. Your time is split as the chief for one of the attendings. You will attend either the LSU or Denver course for board preparation. You will typically cut half the orthognathic cases with the attending cutting the other half. You will cut the entire case when it is unilateral (pathology, TMJ etc)
Total time (months): OMFS (38), Medical School (18), Anesthesia (5), General Surgery (11)
Scope
Orthognathic: Our program is notorious for being very heavy on orthognathic surgery. Dr. Turvey and Dr. Blakey are very well known in this field and will often do 3 in one day.
Pathology: Dr. Blakey has a very large patient pool of benign pathology. We regularly have multiple KCOT procedures in a week as well as reconstructions for ameloblastoma. We do not no cancer at UNC but you will be involved with resections while at Asheville.
TMJ: Dr. Matthews is our TMJ specialist. You will do plenty of cases including arthrocentesis, arthroscopy, and total joints
Trauma: Chapel Hill is not a dangerous area and we have a reputation for not being very trauma heavy because of this. At Asheville you take full face call q2 days. We take q3 month mandible call between plastics and ENT at UNC. Dr. Blakey has a contract with the corrections department so that all facial trauma from there is only seen by our service, which provides additional trauma cases without the extra burden on call.
Cosmetics: Dr. Fisher, who is fellowship trained, has a cosmetic clinic at UNC. Procedures range from blepharoplasties and face-lifts, to microneedling and botox.
Cleft/Craniofacial: We do both primary and secondary repairs. We also see a good amount of syndromic patients (hemifacial microsomia, Treacher Collins, etc) that require multiple procedures. Dr. Turvey, who is an expert in the field, and Dr. Daniel who is fellowship trained, do these cases with us
Implants: We have designated implant days and often use CBCT for treatment planning. You will place the majority of you implants as a PGY1 at the VA and increasing number at UNC as you progress through the program. We have conferences with the prosth department once a month
Cancer: We do not do any head and neck cancer at UNC but multiple residents who have an interest have spent their electives with ablation/microvascular fellowships.
Call
We take home call and there is a GPR that takes tooth/dentoalveolar fracture calls at UNC. When you are at the VA you take call there in addition to at UNC, but there tends to be very little call coming from the VA. First call is Q2-Q4 as a lower level (PGY1/3) depending on how many are on anesthesia. As an upper level (PGY5/6) call is Q4-Q5. Weekend call is grouped together so you are either on call Friday-Sunday or off the entire weekend. You do not take any call while you are on anesthesia or in medical school.
Didactics
1 hour every Wednesday morning that alternates between a resident run lecture on selected topics and mock boards held by faculty. Two hours every Friday by faculty both within our program and from outside departments. Examples include pathology by Dr. Blakey, Ophthalmology/Radiology by attendings from within UNC. There is also a guest speaker that comes in for a full day once a year. Last year’s was Dr. Tiwana. Grand rounds Friday after lecture to discuss cases for upcoming week along with resident run teaching during this time
Tuition/Salary
You will pay a prorated instate tuition for medical school for the 18 months you are a student. So one year is $35,000x1.5 for total of ~$52,000. You will be paid during all of your months on service including the 6 months during your PGY3 year that is split with medical school. Salary starts at $55,000 and increases a couple grand each PGY year
Additional Benefits
You are allowed to moonlight while in med school. How much you do is up to you but average pay is about $1000 for working 9a-4p. There is an office position set up. You are given a textbook allowance each year. All Step I/II/III related costs and study materials are covered. You are given $150/month for cafeteria food while at UNC and unlimited free cafeteria food while at Asheville
Research
UNC has many research opportunities with the most faculty currently having projects with residents. Not all residents choose to do research throughout the entire program and there is no formal requirement. That being said, the majority of residents present at AAOMS and have multiple publications. The program will pay for your transportation and hotel for any conferences that your research is accepted to present at with no cap on number of conferences
Chapel Hill
Residents live within the triangle area (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill). It is by no means a big city but there are plenty of things do/places to eat between the three areas. The beach is two hours east and the mountains are two hours west. Chapel Hill itself is a college town with bars and restaurants surrounding the campus. To give an idea of cost of living, a one-bedroom apartment in Chapel Hill costs $800/month. Living is significantly cheaper in Durham and is only 10-15 min drive from the hospital.
Residents
The residents get along well and meet up outside of work as a large group at least once a month for dinner/other outings. Due to us all having different schedules most will hangout outside of work in smaller groups. There are very few residents from the same dental school and are from all over the country. Approximately half are married. Most residents from our program go into private practice but in the last few years we have had residents match into Dr. Ruiz's cleft/craniofacial, Dr. Carlson's oncologic, and cosmetic fellowships.
Externship
You will spend most of your time observing in the OR but can help extract teeth in the urgent care clinic if you would like. You will also be allowed to round on the inpatients and take call with the residents, but this is entirely up to you. You will have to arrange for your own housing and transportation.
