yaleOMS2025
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Yale New Haven Hospital Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Program Overview 2025
(This was previously posted in the program overview thread, reposting this as a separate thread to make it easier for applicants to find)
Hey everyone! I’m not sure when the last program overview was posted for Yale OMS, so here is a little more information I hope is helpful for future applicants!
Yale New Haven Hospital offers a 4 year Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery residency program. There are 2 residents per year and 1 non-categorical resident per year. Here is a brief overview of what our program is like:
PGY-1 (5 months OMS, 2 months Medicine, 5 months Anesthesia):
Your 1st year will be divided between OMS, Medicine and Anesthesia. When you are on OMS you will be taking primary call along with the non-categorical and 2nd year residents. You will spend most of your time treating patients in our outpatient clinic doing consultations, follow ups, and procedures under local anesthesia. You’ll also be involved in the workup for our orthognathic cases. You will spend 2 months on the medicine service, learning how to manage floor patients, including 2-4 weeks on the MICU and getting a better understanding of how the hospital works on a broader scale. During our anesthesia rotation you are paired with an amazing CRNA who has worked with our residents for years and you receive 1 on 1 training for running the anesthesia in the GI clinic and eventually get to the point where you are running the anesthesia all on your own. You’re able to spend ample time in the OR getting experience with intubations and airway management.
PGY-2 (6 months OMS, 3 months Gen Surg, 1 month Head and Neck, 1 month Plastics):
During your 2nd you will be on service (6 months) working in the clinic as well as going to the OR more frequently for dentoalveolar cases and joining the senior residents for the more advanced cases in the OR. You will continue to take primary call which will be split with the 1st year residents. The other half of the year will be split between General Surgery, ENT (head and neck), and Plastics.
PGY-3 (12 months OMS):
You spend your entire 3rd year on service with OMS where you will continue to see patients in the clinic and have a significant increase in OR operative experience. You will be the primary anesthesia provider for most of the in clinic sedation cases. You will work closely with local orthodontists to coordinate preparations for our orthognathic surgery patients.
PGY-4 (12 months OMS):
As a 4th year, you will be the co-chief of the service and be responsible for overseeing all patient treatment and all of the other residents. Chief residents split back up call evenly and will go in on occasion when the junior resident needs a hand or whenever there is an operable case. They are the primary presenters at case conference every week where they receive feedback and questions about the cases they have recently done (great preparation for oral boards). You will be the
Scope
Our scope includes training in dentoalveolar surgery, implants, sedations/anesthesia, orthognathic, infections, pediatric cases, benign pathology, bony ablation and reconstruction, trauma, and a little TMJ. We work together with our ENT colleagues to manage head and neck cancer cases. We will come in and do the bony ablation and bony reconstruction portions of the surgery and they do the free flap harvesting and placement. They cover the flap management post operatively, which is a great setup for us.
Facilities
Our outpatient clinic is located at 1 Long Wharf in New Haven. We have 2 hospitals where we take call and operate, York Street campus and Saint Raphael’s campus. They are both in New Haven and within a 5 min drive of each other.
Call
Primary call is split between our non-categorical resident, 1st year and 2nd year residents. It is generally q3. We split trauma call with ENT and plastics, so trauma call ends up being about every 3 weeks. Tooth call is usually very manageable. We are fortunate to have GPR and pediatric dental residencies at Yale who help to cover a lot of the more simple dental calls that come in. We are usually only called for deep space infections or some of the more complex dentoalveolar cases. Each weekend is assigned to 1 resident, meaning if you are on call you will be on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The great part about this is that it ensures you will almost always have at least 2 weekends per month that are completely free.
Clinic
Our clinic is a resident run clinic. This means you always have an attending there to oversee what you are doing and be there for any help you may need, but the patients are yours. From day 1, you really get to take ownership over the patients you see and you get great experience coming up with your own treatment plan and then following your patient all the way through until the end of their treatment. We don’t have an attending clinic here, so every patient that comes in is the residents’ patient and we are the ones who do the workup, surgery, and post op management. It’s all done with the approval of the attending, but we are the ones driving the ship which is great clinical experience.
Faculty
We are fortunate to have 2 full time and 15 part time attendings who split their time between private practice and the hospital. One of the benefits of this is you learn so many different ways to do surgery. You pick up tricks and tips from every attending along the way and you gradually start to figure out what your preferred methods are.
Full time faculty:
Part time faculty:
Finances
Our resident stipend at Yale ranks among the best in the country, especially when considering cost of living. Here are the numbers for 2025-26:
Lectures/Didactics
As required by CODA, we are expected to “participate in research activity”. Every resident is expected to present at the end of year 2 and year 4 what research they have been involved in. What you do is largely up to you. We have not traditionally been a program that publishes a lot of research, but Yale has so many resources that are available to you, so if you are interested there is a lot of help available.
Externships
We offer a 1 week externship any time of the year except for June or July. Our website is unfortunately out of date, so just to clarify it does NOT have to be 2 weeks. 1 week is preferred. It says that 3 letters of recommendation are required, but just 1 letter of recommendation is sufficient. Additionally, application materials can be emailed to [email protected], they do not have to be sent via mail. You will only have to mail the $25 dollar check by mail, but everything else can be emailed.
Living in Connecticut
Around New Haven, there are lots of cute coastal towns with small beaches where a lot of us will go with our dogs or just to go on walks. There are plenty of parks nearby with great spots for pickleball or tennis. There are several island towns nearby, like Block Island, which is an amazing place for a weekend trip. New York or Boston are both a few hours away. There are plenty of options for things to do when you are off!
Strengths
(This was previously posted in the program overview thread, reposting this as a separate thread to make it easier for applicants to find)
Hey everyone! I’m not sure when the last program overview was posted for Yale OMS, so here is a little more information I hope is helpful for future applicants!
Yale New Haven Hospital offers a 4 year Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery residency program. There are 2 residents per year and 1 non-categorical resident per year. Here is a brief overview of what our program is like:
PGY-1 (5 months OMS, 2 months Medicine, 5 months Anesthesia):
Your 1st year will be divided between OMS, Medicine and Anesthesia. When you are on OMS you will be taking primary call along with the non-categorical and 2nd year residents. You will spend most of your time treating patients in our outpatient clinic doing consultations, follow ups, and procedures under local anesthesia. You’ll also be involved in the workup for our orthognathic cases. You will spend 2 months on the medicine service, learning how to manage floor patients, including 2-4 weeks on the MICU and getting a better understanding of how the hospital works on a broader scale. During our anesthesia rotation you are paired with an amazing CRNA who has worked with our residents for years and you receive 1 on 1 training for running the anesthesia in the GI clinic and eventually get to the point where you are running the anesthesia all on your own. You’re able to spend ample time in the OR getting experience with intubations and airway management.
PGY-2 (6 months OMS, 3 months Gen Surg, 1 month Head and Neck, 1 month Plastics):
During your 2nd you will be on service (6 months) working in the clinic as well as going to the OR more frequently for dentoalveolar cases and joining the senior residents for the more advanced cases in the OR. You will continue to take primary call which will be split with the 1st year residents. The other half of the year will be split between General Surgery, ENT (head and neck), and Plastics.
PGY-3 (12 months OMS):
You spend your entire 3rd year on service with OMS where you will continue to see patients in the clinic and have a significant increase in OR operative experience. You will be the primary anesthesia provider for most of the in clinic sedation cases. You will work closely with local orthodontists to coordinate preparations for our orthognathic surgery patients.
PGY-4 (12 months OMS):
As a 4th year, you will be the co-chief of the service and be responsible for overseeing all patient treatment and all of the other residents. Chief residents split back up call evenly and will go in on occasion when the junior resident needs a hand or whenever there is an operable case. They are the primary presenters at case conference every week where they receive feedback and questions about the cases they have recently done (great preparation for oral boards). You will be the
Scope
Our scope includes training in dentoalveolar surgery, implants, sedations/anesthesia, orthognathic, infections, pediatric cases, benign pathology, bony ablation and reconstruction, trauma, and a little TMJ. We work together with our ENT colleagues to manage head and neck cancer cases. We will come in and do the bony ablation and bony reconstruction portions of the surgery and they do the free flap harvesting and placement. They cover the flap management post operatively, which is a great setup for us.
Facilities
Our outpatient clinic is located at 1 Long Wharf in New Haven. We have 2 hospitals where we take call and operate, York Street campus and Saint Raphael’s campus. They are both in New Haven and within a 5 min drive of each other.
Call
Primary call is split between our non-categorical resident, 1st year and 2nd year residents. It is generally q3. We split trauma call with ENT and plastics, so trauma call ends up being about every 3 weeks. Tooth call is usually very manageable. We are fortunate to have GPR and pediatric dental residencies at Yale who help to cover a lot of the more simple dental calls that come in. We are usually only called for deep space infections or some of the more complex dentoalveolar cases. Each weekend is assigned to 1 resident, meaning if you are on call you will be on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The great part about this is that it ensures you will almost always have at least 2 weekends per month that are completely free.
Clinic
Our clinic is a resident run clinic. This means you always have an attending there to oversee what you are doing and be there for any help you may need, but the patients are yours. From day 1, you really get to take ownership over the patients you see and you get great experience coming up with your own treatment plan and then following your patient all the way through until the end of their treatment. We don’t have an attending clinic here, so every patient that comes in is the residents’ patient and we are the ones who do the workup, surgery, and post op management. It’s all done with the approval of the attending, but we are the ones driving the ship which is great clinical experience.
Faculty
We are fortunate to have 2 full time and 15 part time attendings who split their time between private practice and the hospital. One of the benefits of this is you learn so many different ways to do surgery. You pick up tricks and tips from every attending along the way and you gradually start to figure out what your preferred methods are.
Full time faculty:
- Michael Johnson, DMD, FACS – Program chief
- Leonard Skope, DDS – Program Director
Part time faculty:
- Karen S. Ablow, DMD
- James Affenito, DDS
- Naushad Edibam, DMD
- Salvatore J. Florio, DDS, MD
- Andrew Kressley, DMD
- Joseph Perrone, DMD, MD
- Paul Ciuci, DMD, MD, FACS
- David Salomon, DDS
- Arthur Wilk, DDS
- Ian Gibbs, DMD
- Michael J. Safian, DDS
- Mary Jane Anderson, DMD, MD
- Daniela Boldikova, DDS
- Giovanni Ibrahim, DMD, MS
- Jiean Heifetz-Li, DMD, MS
Finances
Our resident stipend at Yale ranks among the best in the country, especially when considering cost of living. Here are the numbers for 2025-26:
Lectures/Didactics
- Resident Lecture series – every Monday one of the residents will give an hour-long lecture on a predetermined topic
- Faculty Lectures
- Orthognathic Conference - once a month we meet with community orthodontists and present our newest orthognathic patients including their workup and our proposed surgical plan. They give us great feedback and we work together to come up with the right plan for each patient.
- Oral Pathology lectures with our oral pathologist, Dr. Eskendri.
- Case conference
- Boards practice cases
As required by CODA, we are expected to “participate in research activity”. Every resident is expected to present at the end of year 2 and year 4 what research they have been involved in. What you do is largely up to you. We have not traditionally been a program that publishes a lot of research, but Yale has so many resources that are available to you, so if you are interested there is a lot of help available.
Externships
We offer a 1 week externship any time of the year except for June or July. Our website is unfortunately out of date, so just to clarify it does NOT have to be 2 weeks. 1 week is preferred. It says that 3 letters of recommendation are required, but just 1 letter of recommendation is sufficient. Additionally, application materials can be emailed to [email protected], they do not have to be sent via mail. You will only have to mail the $25 dollar check by mail, but everything else can be emailed.
Living in Connecticut
Around New Haven, there are lots of cute coastal towns with small beaches where a lot of us will go with our dogs or just to go on walks. There are plenty of parks nearby with great spots for pickleball or tennis. There are several island towns nearby, like Block Island, which is an amazing place for a weekend trip. New York or Boston are both a few hours away. There are plenty of options for things to do when you are off!
Strengths
- Amazing resident culture. We are all friends. We hang out outside of work. We support each other. Everyone is treated with respect. The senior residents are patient and encouraging when teaching the junior residents. Our culture is as far away from malignant as it could be. We are busy, but the residents here are genuinely happy, despite the inevitable stresses of residency, which is worth a lot.
- Anesthesia training – by the end of your first year, you feel incredibly comfortable with airway management and IV sedations. There are some programs where you are assigned to 1 room and you might be in 1 long case per day. The way ours is set up, you can do up to 12 IV sedations in one day or you can jump from room to room getting ample experience with induction and intubation. Then you get to start doing sedations in clinic 2nd year and you have 3 more years to get even more comfortable.
- Orthognathic training – starting year 1, you are doing orthognathic records, workup, and making presentations to present to orthodontists and attendings with a proposed surgical plan. You get to understand orthognathic surgery really well really quickly through that process. Then as a 3rd and 4th year, you are usually the primary surgeon for at least half of the surgery.
- Dentoalveolar – also starting year 1, you are busy in the clinic working up patients and doing procedures under local. Like I mentioned before, this is a resident run clinic, these are not your attendings' patients who you see briefly before the attending comes in. You have ownership over all the cases that come in and that really helps you get comfortable with anything that walks in the door relatively quickly. You get plenty of experience to where you have complete confidence with all dentoalveolar by the time you are graduating.
