Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Residency Program

Accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation, the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (OMS) Residency Program at Yale New Haven Hospital teaches residents the full scope of skills needed to practice in either a hospital or private office, including the use of all current techniques of pain and anxiety control.

Two applicants are selected each year to enter the OMS program, which is affiliated with Yale School of Medicine. The four-year curriculum provides all the prerequisites and requirements needed to qualify for, and succeed in, the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery's certification process.

U.S. News and World Report ranks Yale New Haven Hospital among the best hospitals in the United States and is a level-one trauma center, and regional referral center, thus providing residents with a robust clinical and academic experience.

Residents gain experience from providing a full range of ambulatory services in modern outpatient clinics, with teaching and supervision provided by a full-time Program Director, a full-time Section Chief, a part-time Assistant Program Director, several part-time faculty who teach 1-2 days per week, and several faculty from community practices who teach twice per month.

The outpatient experience at Yale New Haven Hospital's OMS Clinic in the Saint Raphael Campus is supplemented by rotations to Yale New Haven Hospital York Street Campus, including the Pediatric Dental Center where OMS residents work alongside general practice and pediatric dental residents under the direction of OMS faculty common to both campuses.

A strong and comprehensive or surgical experience is gained in operating rooms of Yale New Haven Hospital to ensure each resident receives a progressive education in both major and minor OMS. 

How to apply

All applications for positions in this residency program are made through the Postdoctoral Application Support Service (PASS) for The American Dental Association. Contact PASS for more information about the application process.

All selections for residency are made through the Postdoctoral Dental Matching Program.

Clinical setting

Residents perform most outpatient OMS services in Yale New Haven Hospital's outpatient Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Clinic at the Saint Raphael Campus—a spacious, state-of-the-art facility that sees wide range of patients and is fully equipped to provide the full scope of OMS ambulatory surgery and anesthesia. Many patients are low income, live in inner city neighborhoods and face multiple health issues. Patients are also referred regularly for OMS care from the General Practice and Pediatric Dental Residency Training Programs at Yale New Haven Hospital, as well as from private practices in the area.

In addition, there is an OMS presence in the Pediatric Dental Center. This clinic offers a unique outpatient pediatric OMS experience, which includes office-based OMS surgery, pediatric sedation, craniofacial outpatient care and multidisciplinary care to pediatric patients while creating a collaborative interdisciplinary environment.

Yale New Haven Hospital York Street Campus Dental Center is an in-hospital clinic with the General Practice Residency program that offers OMS services to medically complex inpatients. Experiences include surgical treatment of complex patients from Smilow Cancer Hospital, the Transplant Center, Heart and Vascular, Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital and the Trauma Center. Additionally, it is the site for the Yale Center for Oral Diseases, a combined oral pathology, oral medicine and oral surgery clinic.

Curriculum

Residents provide hands-on care from the start of the program, although responsibilities are progressive and are based on skill and experience. Supervised operating experience is encouraged, with the complexity of the case matching the resident's ability.

Formal teaching rounds take place in the morning, followed by clinical instruction, conferences, lectures and seminars. Afternoon work rounds are conducted by the chief resident.

While most of each of the four-year residency is spent providing inpatient and outpatient OMS care, residents gain added expertise from rotations in anesthesia (adult and pediatric), medicine, emergency medicine, general surgery, otolaryngology, plastic surgery and oral pathology.

 
Didactics:

• Simulated anesthesia emergencies for OMS
• Comprehensive Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology seminar for OMS surgeons
• Oral and maxillofacial surgery topics lecture series and mock oral board Practicum (a comprehensive course following the ABOMS examination blueprint; mock exam questions to follow lectures)
• Surgical anatomy and cadaver lab for oral and maxillofacial surgery (Yale School of Medicine Anatomy Department)
• OMS Resident Lecture Series

 
Conferences:

• Weekly OMS case conference and QA
• Interdisciplinary dental implant conference and literature review
• Orthognathic surgery conference
• Craniofacial and maxillofacial trauma conference
• Multidisciplinary dental case conference (pediatric dental, OMS, orthodontics, endodontics, prosthodontics)
• OMS section grand rounds
• Department of dentistry grand rounds
• General surgery grand rounds
• Yale Head and Neck Tumor Board 

 
Residents will be required to identify and work on a research project, and will be provided with research time and faculty mentoring during the program. During the second and fourth years of training, residents will prepare a finished paper and/or abstract for publication and presentation at local or national meetings as well as in-house presentation during an annual research competition.

Formal teaching rounds take place in the morning, followed by clinical instruction, conferences, and lectures.

The clinical program provides broad training in the following specialties: dentoalveolar and implant surgery, outpatient anesthesia, facial trauma, craniomaxillofacial/orthognathic reconstruction, cleft lip, oral and maxillofacial pathology and reconstruction, and infection management.

Faculty

Full-time faculty

Derek M. Steinbacher, DMD, MD, FACS
Section Chief, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Chief
Dental Services

Michael P. Johnson, DMD, FACS
Program Director, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Part-time faculty

Leonard Skope, DDS
Associate Program Director

Michael J. Safian, DDS
Director of Resident Research

Ian Gibbs, DMD
Course Director, OMS Resident Lecture Series

Kenneth Patrician, DDS

David Salomon, DDS

Arthur Wilk, DDS

Paul M. Ciuci, MD, DMD, FACS
Course Director, Yale Simulated Anesthesia
Emergencies for Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Christel Haberland, MS, DDS
Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology
Center for Oral Diseases
Course Director, Comprehensive Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology Seminar for Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon
Program Director, Pediatric Dentistry Residency Program

Part-time community faculty:

• Karen S. Ablow, DMD
• James Affenito, DDS
• Jeffrey Berkley, DDS
• Philip J. Conforti, DDS
• Naushad Edibam, DMD
• Salvatore J. Florio, MD, DDS
• Andrew Kressley, DMD
• Roger Lowlicht, MS, DDS
• Joseph Perrone, DMD, MD
• Fedele N. Volpe, DMD