That travels fast. I know that kid's dad and just saw that video pop up on my facebook page yesterday. Maybe I missed it before or something. Funny yet kind of scary as well. Yes, he probably should have been watched for a little while longer.
I have met an oral surgery resident and a 3rd year dental student this month who are both doing anesthesia rotations. The OMFS residents do 3 months of anesthesia where I am at and the 3rd year dental student was rotating because he thinks he wants to do a dental anesthesia fellowship after dental school (didn't know those existed, but apparently it is a 1yr program after dental school and they can do "anesthesia/sedation" for oral surgeons or dentists that don't want to do their own). Extremely scary talking to these two and realizing how much basic medicine and pharmacology that they don't know and they have no clue that they need to know it.
Just to clarify a few points with my personal experiences.
My Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Residency is pretty typical in terms of training.
Anesthesiology-6 Months (the national requirement is a minimum of 4 months).
**** But we also spend almost 3 more years providing IV Sedation and General Anesthesia for our ASA 1/2 patients in our clinic during our residency as well.*****
Internal Medicine- 2 Months
ICU- 1 Month
ER- 1 Month
General/Trauma Surgery- 6 Months
ENT- 1 Month
Plastics- 1 Month
We are BLS and ACLS Certified. We are also ATLS Certified.
We are the primary providers of surgical airways/tracheostomies at our hospital.
We provide nearly 100% of the reconstructive surgery for all Cranio-Maxillofacial-Trauma
We treat benign and malignant tumors of the head and neck.
We harvest the bone and tissue from distant sites in the body to reconstruct the head and neck.
Essentially, what I am trying to drive home is... we aren't just a bunch of monkeys that pull teeth.
In the real world, the statistics do not lie either. After nearly 30 years of studies our morbidity/mortality rate is something to be envied. 1 death per 900,000 Anesthetics administered in our offices.
I don't know where you are training and what OMFS resident and "dental students" you have come across, but I'm pretty sure you are talking about the exceptions and not the rule/standard OMFS resident.
We frequently sedate and perform oral surgery on members of the Anesthesia Department.
As far as the dental anesthesia stuff...
There are some hospital based Anesthesiology Residency programs for Dentists. They are 2-3 years in duration. They typically spend at least 1-2 of those years alongside you.
There are also Anesthesiology Fellowships available for Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons. They are 1-2 years in duration and are completely within the medical Anesthesia Residency Programs. They just integrate the OMFS into the residency to gain further experience, especially additional pediatric experience. 2 of my attendings have completed these fellowships, and they are the ones who supervise us in the clinic for those additional 2.5-3 years of IV Sedation/General Anesthesia we provide for our clinic patients.
Unfortunately we OMFS' and our newer colleagues being trained as Dental Anesthesiologists are being lumped by association of our title DMD or DDS with "General Dentists" that have varying degrees of "continuing education and training in Oral Conscious Sedation and IV Conscious Sedation". There is a HUGE difference between us and our level of training.
Enough already. Hopefully I've enlightened a few people.
