What is an Oral Surgeon?
One of the areas of dental specialty available at the Marconi Dental Group is oral surgery. Although general dentists perform many types of surgical procedures, for certain cases the expertise of an oral surgeon is preferred. What does it take to become an oral surgeon and what sort of surgeries do they perform?
The Path to Oral Surgery
To become an oral surgeon, you first must become a dentist. That generally takes four years of medical training at dental school. Afterwards, a student of oral surgery spends four to six years in a residency program practicing the treatment of problems in the head and neck region. Oral surgeons thus have the opportunity to work at both hospitals and dental offices during their residency program. To gain further experience with a specific aspect of oral surgery, such as repairing cleft defects, treating oral cancer, or facial cosmetics, many specialists follow their residency with a multi-year fellowship.
Typical Procedures for Oral Surgeons
Oral surgeons are trained to perform surgeries of the oral cavity and associated areas in the head and neck, so their abilities are quite broad in these areas. Some of the specific procedures that may be handled by an oral surgeon at the Marconi Dental Group include the following:
- Installing dental implants,
- Removing oral cysts or tumors,
- Cleft palate surgery,
- Facial cosmetic surgery,
- Jawbone grafts,
- TMJ surgery,
- Extraction of impacted wisdom teeth.
Therefore, if a patient at the Marconi Dental Group requires any of the above procedures, we may recommend that an oral surgeon perform it.
For more information about oral and maxillofacial surgery at the Marconi Dental Group, contact us online or by calling 916-589-6462.
