Advanced Education -- Program in Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery

The Advanced Educational Program in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans is a six-year OMS-MD residency program designed to fulfill the educational requirements of the American Dental Association Commission on Dental Accreditation and the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. Each year four applicants are selected to begin seventy-two months of training. The Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans (Interim Louisiana Hospital) serves as the primary teaching hospital. Other affiliated institutions are Earl K. Long Medical Center in Baton Rouge, Carolinas Healthcare System, Our Lady of the Lake in Baton Rouge, East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, and the dental and medical schools of Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center. Biomedical-science instruction is incorporated throughout the six-year residency program. Formal didactic courses outside of the medical school curriculum include Applied Head and Neck Surgical Anatomy, Advanced Oral Pathology, TMJ Diseases, and Orthognathic Surgery. Conferences consist of Clinical Pathology, Preoperative Surgery, Pain Control and Sedation, Journal Club and Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Teaching Seminars. 

Enrollment in the LSU Health Sciences Center School of Medicine in New Orleans for Introduction to Clinical Medicine, Clinical Pathology and Dermatology is concurrent with the initial twelve-month clinical oral and maxillofacial surgery rotation. Advanced standing for third-year entry into medical school is predicated on passage of the national Medical Boards Step I in June of the applicant's first year of training. Following 24 months of medical school, one year of General Surgery credit is gained with rotation in the Emergency Room, General Surgery and Surgical Subspecialties, Neurosurgery, and Anesthesia. The residents return to the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Department for twenty-four months to complete the program.

Patient load during the thirty-six months of oral and maxillofacial surgery training includes extensive maxillofacial hard- and soft-tissue trauma and reconstruction, orthognathic, and craniofacial surgery, temporomandibular joint disorders, all forms of cosmetic surgery, pathology, preprosthetic and implant surgery, advanced exodontia, and ambulatory outpatient general anesthesia. The combined annual inpatient surgery at all teaching hospitals exceeds 1,500 cases. Over 25,000 outpatients are seen each year, which accounts for 6,000 procedures.

The program is closely supervised by five full-time and fifteen part time board certified oral and maxillofacial surgeons. Applicants must be graduates or seniors in the upper 25% of their class of dental schools recognized by the Council on Dental Education of the American Dental Association. Applications from graduates of dental schools outside the U.S. and Canada will be considered if they have attended a U.S. equivalency program and receive a U.S. DDS equivalency degree.  Foreign applicants must already have permanent U.S.A. residency status prior to application.  

Participation in the Postdoctoral Application Support Service (PASS) program is required. Additional experience beyond dental school (general practice residency, anesthesia residency, private practice, graduate school, etc.) may strengthen the applicant's credentials. A $50.00 processing fee payable to the LSU Health Sciences Center School of Dentistry is required of those applying. After applications have been received and reviewed, invitations for interviews will be sent out by the director of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Residency Program.

Applicants must agree to participate in the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Residents Matching Program, the description of which is excerpted from the AAOMS below.   The LSU PASS deadline is September 15; all supplemental papers and the PASS application must be received by LSU by October 1.

The use of the matching program for first-year residents in oral and maxillofacial surgery residency programs has been utilized for residency positions since 1986. This program is sponsored by the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons and administered through the National Matching Service. The matching program is financed by fees paid by the AAOMS, applicants, and programs participating.

The matching program provides an orderly method to enable applicants to obtain positions in the first-year residency program of their choice and also to help programs obtain applicants of their choice. This will eliminate an inequitable recruitment process that forces premature decisions, which put unnecessary pressure on both applicants as well as programs. This is very similar to the National Matching Program for medical students applying to medical residency programs throughout the United States. Applicants and programs continue to contact each other directly and interview and evaluate each other independently of the Matching Program. However, no offers are made during this period. After all the interviews are completed, both applicants and residency programs submit a confidential "Rank Order List" in which they list the applicants or programs in order of their preference. Both applicants and programs may safely list preferred choices first without consideration for how they will be ranked by the other party. All information submitted to the Matching Program is kept confidential.

Participating programs must offer all first-year positions through the Matching Program. Programs may not make or require any commitments or contracts with anyone prior to the release of the match results. Similarly, applicants may apply only to programs that are participating in the Matching Program or until the results of the match are released. The confidential "Rank Order List" submitted by each program and applicant are the sole determinants of their respective order or preference of the match.

The match results constitute a binding commitment from which neither the applicant nor the program can withdraw without mutual written agreement. The program must offer appointments to each applicant with whom it is matched, and the applicant must accept the offer from the program unless both parties agree to release each other from the match result. The program may not accept any applicant who was matched elsewhere and subsequently not released from that match.

LSU Six-Year Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery/MD Program - New Orleans

Key Information

Contact the LSUHSC School of  Dentistry
Office of Advanced Education:
Eric J. Hovland, DDS, MEd, MBA
Director, Office of Advanced Education
c/o Delores Bradford, Administrative Assistant
LSUHSC School of Dentistry
1100 Florida Avenue
New Orleans, LA  70119
tel. 504-941-8113; fax 504-941-8180 
E-mail: ds-AdvancedEducation@lsuhsc.edu

LSU School of Dentistry Department of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery
American Association of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons