The fellowship in oral and maxillofacial surgery program can best be described in the following year-by-year overview.
Year 1
The program begins with training in the basic principles of OMFS and the management of medically compromised patients. It assesses the individual knowledge of students and calibrates their technical skills to the standards of the College of Dentistry. Core and specialty courses are provided along with clinical training. The student is familiarized to hospital-based practice and would participate in preoperative work ups, operative procedures, and postoperative care. He/she would be trained in the skills necessary to be the first on-call in OMFS emergencies.
Year 2
Students will be enrolled in additional core and specialty courses, continue with advanced patient care in clinical courses and are introduced to advanced research through courses in research methodologies as well as biostatistics. Students are expected to begin their search for and selection of an appropriate research project by the end of the second year. A master level research project should be selected, prepared as a research protocol, and submitted for approval in this year.
Upon successful completion of the first 4 OMFS specialty courses, the student would start off service rotations in the allied specialties with clear learning objectives and goals. The student would take on responsibilities including on-call and inpatient and outpatient care and management.
The rotation includes but is not limited to:
- Internal medicine rotation that includes hematology, general medicine, and cardiology. (2 Months)
- Anesthesia, that includes training in IV Sedation, and general anesthesia. (3 Months)
- General surgery (1 month)
- Emergency trauma (1 month)
- Surgical intensive care (1 month)
- Plastic surgery (1 month)
- Neurosurgery (1 month)
- Otolaryngology / ENT (1 month)
- Ophthalmology (1 month)
Year 3
At this stage in the program, aside from completion of any remaining core and specialty courses, students will continue to be enrolled in research project to complete it by year’s end. Students will be required to prepare a manuscript and submit it for publication. Also, in year 3, the students will be enrolled in special 1-hour courses, entitled Directed Study, to provide them with experience in a wide variety of areas related to dental education, teaching and research. During this year students would be sent for training in areas of specialist interest within oral and maxillofacial surgery. There would be 3 rotations each of 2 months duration in which the student would be sent to high volume centers managing patients requiring (i) Head and Neck surgical oncology, (ii) Cosmetic and reconstructive surgery, (iii) Cleft lip and palate and craniofacial surgery.
Year 4
Students will continue doing didactic core and specialty course requirements, continue their clinical requirements, and submit proof of acceptance or published article from their research project in a peer-reviewed journal.
Year 5
In the final year, students will fulfill all remaining didactic core and specialty course requirements, complete their clinical requirements (by the end of the academic year) and be ready for the final OMFS exam.
Summer Sessions
- Students will enroll in the Clinical OMFS course to provide ongoing patient care during the summer months.