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University of Kentucy College of Dentistry 
Building a Foundation for the Future
 
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Division of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

The Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery graduate program is sponsored by the College of Dentistry at the University of Kentucky and is physically located on the fifth floor of the College of Dentistry.  Additional teaching locations for residents include Chandler Medical Center, the Veterans Administrative Hospital in Lexington, and the University of Kentucky Children’s Hospital.  The program is approved by the Commission on Dental Accreditation for three residents per year.  Dental students spend two weeks of their third and fourth years primarily on the fifth floor of the College of Dentistry. During this time they interact with faculty and residents in training and see multiple patients.  As a part of this experience medical assessment of the compromised patient is reinforced and they are allowed to manage routine dentoalveolar surgical patients.  Additionally, dental students participate in some of the teaching activities of the residency program. 

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Residents in the six year integrated combined medical degree program of oral and maxillofacial surgery interact with dental students and with the other postgraduate programs in the College of Dentistry.  The first 15 months of training is spent on the oral and maxillofacial surgery service gaining experience in inpatient and outpatient surgery.  The next 26 months are spent in medical school followed by a year of general surgery rotations.  The final 12 months are spent at chief resident level in OMFS.  The Chief Resident is responsible for the daily operations of the service, management of all patients, and is intricately involved with most operative procedures.  Residents are responsible for Maxillofacial Trauma call every third night, rotating with the Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery and Plastic and reconstructive Surgery services.  The service manages all bony and soft tissue injuries to the head and neck region on these nights.  Residents are also responsible for taking call the remaining nights for direct referrals to the OMFS service from within the Chandler Medical Center as well as from hospitals throughout the Commonwealth of Kentucky.


The division chief and residency director is Dr. Larry Cunningham. Dr. Joseph Van Sickels is the Assistant Dean and Chair of Hospital Dentistry for Chandler Medical Center.  Additional faculty involved in both postgraduate and graduate education on a daily basis includes Dr. Jeffrey Dembo and Dr. Gregory Cobetto.  With four full time faculty, several of whom have national and international recognition, the scope of the practice is extremely broad covering all eleven areas listed in the parameters of care for oral and maxillofacial surgery.  The faculty has published extensively with over 235 publications in scientific journals, and numerous additional publications in chapters and abstracts. Residents and students are actively involved with the faculty in these publications which range from anesthesia, distraction osteogenesis, implant dentistry, orthognathic surgery, temporomandibular joint surgery, and trauma.