Political Campaign Preferences for Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons in the United States

An interesting article titled “Political Campaign Contributions of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons Between 2013-2022 – A Decade of Data,” written by Jack A. Harris and et. al. (The Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Volume 80, Issue 9, Supplement, September 2022, Pages S43-S44). The article opens by discussing how oral and maxillofacial surgeons in the U.S. tend to donate to Republican-affiliated candidates and campaigns. This is no surpise to those who understand the inner workings of what certain political parties in the U.S. tend to support and is not ideal, see for example the articles Big Media Monopoly and How to Protect Yourself from Abusive Doctors. In the article, the authors set to determine the magnitude and geographic differences in political contributions made by oral and maxillofacial surgeons between 2013 and 2022 with regards to determining the the total number and … Read more

What is the Better Name: Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon or Oral and Facial Surgeon?

An interesting article titled “What Name Best Represents Our Specialty? Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon Versus Oral and Facial Surgeon” appears in the 2016 edition of the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery written by Guerrero et al. (vol. 75, pp. 9-20). The article addresses if a better name than the current oral and maxillofacial surgeon exists to increase recognition of the profession by the public and other medical doctors. The professional group for oral and maxillofacial surgeons in the U.S. is the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS). This group has long been discussed on this site see for example the posts Upcoming Changes to JOMS and AAOMS in 2014 and Advocacy White Paper on Third Molar Surgery by AAOMS. In recent years AAOMS has created a website over at https://myoms.org/ to educate the pubic about the full … Read more

Oral Surgeon Ordered to Pay $517,000 for Hit and Run Dentistry

In November 2019, an oral and maxillofacial surgeon in New Jersey had his license revoked by the New Jersey State Board of Dentistry and was ordered to pay roughly $517,000 in penalties, costs, and restitution to patients. The oral surgeon was said to have engaged in “hit and run dentistry” that had harmful consequences for many patients. The New Jersey State Board of Dentistry ordered the oral surgeon to pay civil penalties totaling $138,500; restitution totaling $75,041.22 to fifteen patients; and aggregate costs and attorneys’ fees of $303,856.22. New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal said “…revolving-door dentistry that puts practitioners’ financial gain ahead of patient health and safety erodes public trust and undermines the integrity of the entire profession. That’s why it’s important for the Board to take decisive action in cases like this one, and we are pleased that … Read more

Dental Malpractice and Inflation Adjusted Updates

I wanted to alert readers that several pages on this site have been updated lately regarding dental malpractice as it relates to wisdom teeth removal. I updated the inflation adjusted calculations and figures on the dental malpractice page http://www.teethremoval.com/dental_malpractice.html.The calculations using up to the latest CPI-U from September 2013 have been updated. Interestingly I have calculated an annual return of around 4.25% needed to keep up with inflation since 1970. This is higher than any risk-free investment vehicle (bond, CD, savings) currently being offered. In addition, to this page I have added a few comments (reworded) recently provided by Lewis N. Estabrooks who is chairman of the board of OMSNIC. He has recently said the following (OMSNIC. Lewis N. Estabrooks, DMD, MS. Board Message. Monitor, vol. 24, no. 5, October 2013.) “Our statistics show approximately 78% of the claims are … Read more

Updates on Anesthesia Provided by Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons

Recently, it has come to my attention that the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS) has released a new white paper titled “Office-Based Anesthesia Provided by the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon,” in 2013, located over at http://www.aaoms.org/docs/papers/advocacy_office_based_anesthesia.pdf. This data contains some important data from the OMS National Insurance Company (OMSNIC) which to my knowledge had been previously closed. This data is Anesthesia Morbidity and Mortality Data from 2000 to 2010  for a total of 29,975,459 in-office anesthetics (conscious sedation, deep sedation and general anesthesia) provided by oral and maxillofacial surgeons in their offices. It was found from this data that the ratio of office fatalities/brain damage per anesthetics administered is 1 to 365,534.  I had long wondered what this data showed as I have previously looked at numerous studies attempting to determine how many deaths occur when anesthesia … Read more