Hello everyone!
I was just wondering what is the general opinion of the doctor of clinical dentistry (oral surgery) offered at the university of Sydney.
I think all specialty training programs (all DClinDent programs) at USyd are highly regarded in Australia and internationally.
How is it regarded in the profession? Especially, in the perspective of OMFS who had to go through dent + med school compared to this specialisation.
You will find a wide range of OMS specialists all over the world; some that also have medical degrees or PhDs, etc. OMS is a dental specialty not medical (yes even in Australia and NZ). It is true there has been a push by some to make all OMS trainees do a medical degree in Australia/NZ since 1998. However, the option to do OMS without a medical degree in Australia/NZ is now available again. I think you will find that most of the dual qualified OMS graduates over the past 10 years were they themselves
taught by single degree specialists! soo.. yes its highly regarded.
In some places the OMS programs are better structured/organised so that only
after you are accepted into the OMS training program ..the integrated medical degree (which is
optional) is not given until the final year of OMS training. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the RACDS-OMS program now encourages applicants in Australia and New Zealand to first obtain both a dental and a medical degree
without any assurance of actually getting a postgraduate training position. This has now created a silly
surplus of dual qualified people across both Australia and New Zealand who are without
any postgraduate specialty training (kinda
wasteful of resources! Particularly since there is
no other specialty of dentistry
or medicine that requires anyone to complete both of these degrees; it becomes an expensive and pointless exercise without having integrated OMS training). Australia and New Zealand are set to have a lot of general dentists with medical degrees or medical GPs with dental degrees (and a lot of HECS debt).
I hear that many of these dual qualified people have now started applying to the new DClinDent programs as well as the RACDS-OMS program, or some are simply applying to overseas OMS programs.
Additionally, any Australian dental graduate can go (at anytime) overseas and do OMS (
without a medical degree.... This is what I did) or any other dental specialty for that matter : endodontics, or prosthodontics, etc. and come back and apply for recognition of their overseas speciality training and register with the dental board of Australia or DCNZ. I think as long as you go to a well regarded dental speciality program overseas it shouldn't be a problem. There are quite a few prominent single degree OMS guys who work in Australia and NZ who completed their dental degree in Australia/NZ and their OMS training overseas.
OMS is a specialty of dentistry don't forget ...and as such: it is your dental degree and your postgraduate training that allows you operate (not whether or not you hold an undergraduate degree in medicine... which many OMS do not).
At the end of the day it doesn't make a huge difference which path you take. I would just aim to choose a training option that suits you best.
It is an ADA accredited specialisation, which made me wonder what would be the main differences between that and OMFS. My understanding would be that OMFS deal more with neck/face injuries compared to oral surgery (where it would be mostly complicated wisdom teeth + surgery concerning the jaws?).
You will find some single qualified graduates who do lots of facial trauma and orthognathics and you will find some dual qualified graduates who love to only do implants and wisdom teeth.. and visa versa.
That being said.. if you want to do a fellowship in H/N or facial cosmetic surgery you would be probably be better off completing the med degree as this will give you a few more options.