22/05/2022
AND MAXILOFACIAL SURGERY SPECIALITY
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Oral and maxillofacial surgeons (OMS) is a specialty within dentistry, but it is also viewed as a surgical specialty encompassing both dentistry and medicine together.
Oral surgery, such as an extraction of a tooth or dental implant procedure, is surgery that is performed in the oral cavity (mouth). But not everyone who performs “oral surgery” is an oral surgeon. There is a significant difference between having an oral surgery procedure and seeing an oral and maxillofacial surgeon (OMS). As such, oral surgery is basically a category of procedures. While an oral and maxillofacial surgeon is a surgeon who is an expert in performing facial, oral, and jaw surgery.
So what is the difference between a general dentist and an OMS? Many patients are very familiar with the medical distinction between a family doctor (general practitioner) and a specialist. There is a similar distinction among oral health practitioners.
A dentist is a general practitioner of oral health and can diagnose and treat common dental diseases.
An oral and maxillofacial surgeon specializes in oral surgery, removing impacted wisdom teeth, difficult teeth extractions, placing dental implants, bone grafting, and much more.
Education and Training
Although both are oral healthcare providers, and similar to other dental specialties, to become an OMS requires further education beyond completion of dental school. After earning a Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) or Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD), your OMS needs to complete a further four-to-six years of a hospital based surgical residency program. Many OMS, during this training, may also receive a medical degree licensure during this residency training, depending on their scope of practice in the hospital or additional fellowship training. In Canada, the OMS also needs to take a National Board Examination to be recognized as a Certified Specialist in Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery.
As you can see, because of their hospital-based residency training, OMS occupy a unique role between dentistry and medicine. The goal of OMS training and education in this dental specialty is to prepare them to serve as a bridge between dentistry and medicine. During their residency, they have to undergo additional training and rotation in multitude of areas, including anesthesia, general surgery, internal medicine, plastic surgery, and otolaryngology.
OMS specialty is also very unique in that they have additional training and certification in all levels of anesthesia and sedation, from local to general anesthesia, as well as intravenous sedation. This is why many OMS can provide sedation during your wisdom teeth surgery at the office.
Scope of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
So what else do OMS provide? Their training focuses exclusively on the hard (i.e. bone) and soft (i.e. skin muscle) tissue of the face and oral cavity. Therefore they are considered the surgical specialists of the dental profession. So you can imagine their broad scope of practice is mainly concerned with surgical treatments.
Most of the common ones done in outpatient office-setting you may have heard of include:
Impacted wisdom teeth management and extractions
Dental implant surgery
bone grafting or soft tissue grafting
Tooth extractions
Medically-compromised patients requiring dentoalveolar surgery
Anesthesia administration during surgery
Management of dental surgery complications
Exposure and bond for orthodontics
Lip and tongue-tie surgeries
Dentoalveolar trauma management
OMS also occupy an important role in your hospitals, so many of their complicated procedures require the operating room theatre. These include:
Corrective jaw surgery or orthognathic surgery
Facial and trauma surgery
Dental/facial infections
Head and neck pathology
Facial cosmetic surgery
Cleft lip/palate and craniofacial surgery