My Major

My Major

I have chosen pre-Dentistry. I hope to become an Oral and Maxillofacial surgeon. This is one of the more competitive fields that there are in dentistry today. With this I hope to take join my dad in his practice. There are many classes and degrees that a person must complete before he can become an Oral Surgeon. I think that this would be a challenge. School will be tough, but in the end the rewards are endless. After college an Oral Surgeon must attend dental school, then they must go to five year residency for after that. This is a great career, and I think that I could make it if I tried hard enough.

An Oral and Maxiofacial surgeon is the person that you would go to to get your wisdom teeth extracted. That is not all they do most of them are on a hospital staff, if not multiple ones. In the hospital they work mostly in the emergency rooms reconstructing faces from car accidents. Dr. Donald Lewis said "As an Oral and Maxillofacial surgeon, we are called to the emergency room for many types of emergencies, these emergencies can range from facial infections to gun shot wounds of the face and facial fractures". There is a lot of responsibility that is placed on an Orals Surgeon. If that gunshot wound is not removed it could mean serious harm or even death to the patient.

Classes that a student will need to take are mainly sciences mostly chemistry. I will need to take all of the upper level chemistries, along with biology. These are the main courses that I will have to take; there are some math and physics classes they are only in the 200's. The chemistry is needed so one can understand what each prescription drug is does and what reactions that is has to other prescriptions. Biology is needed to know what you are operating on in the person. After completing 122 hours I will receive a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry.

After graduation, I will need to go to Dental school. This will take five years to complete. To graduate I will need to take a written National and State Board examination, upon graduation of dental school I will receive a Doctor of Dental Surgery, D.D.S. From dental school I am still not done. From there I must get into a five-year residency program. Where I must maintain at least a 2.5 grade point average in classes that I take. After the five years, I will need to take another Board exam. This time the exam is not only written, but oral too. Once these tests are past they are now board certified, which means that the are allowed starting their own practice.

There is no set starting salary that an Oral Surgeon makes on average. It all depends on if they get a job in a hospital, or if they start their own practice, or a combination of the two. If you work in a hospital Oral Surgeons start off their first year making about $250,000. If they start their own practice, it can be considerably lower or higher depending on what referring doctors they know and how much patience that they have to begin. From what I have found, most doctors just starting, walk around knocking on doors until another doctor hires them. This way it is kind of like an apprenticeship. They learn stuff that they might not have in residency. Then when that doctor decides to retire, he can take over the practice. This way he starts off in an established practice. This is probably the best way to start.

There are many special talents that a doctor must have to become a doctor. For one, a doctor must be able to handle the sight of blood. There are not too many people that could handle the blood. If he or she can, they must be able to handle the sounds that go along with pulling some ones teeth out of their mouth. An Oral Surgeon must be patient, just to get through all of the school. Also, during residency, there are many times that they will have to stay in the hospital for up to 48 hours straight. Then when they get called into the emergency room, they have to go through the sterilizing process called "scrubs" after that they have to sit in side a sterilized room until the patient is prepped for surgery. They are also going to need "people" skills. The entire patient is not going to friendly and polite to the doctor, so the need to be able to react to that person in a professional way. If they are in the hospital, doctors are not allowed to refuse treatment. If the are in their private office the can tell the patient to leave, but this is not always